Centers & Initiatives

Centers and initiatives make it possible for you to put your education into practice. Through hands-on learning and real-world projects, you will gain the skills and experience needed to thrive in an ever-changing world.

Find Your Fit

Poetry Center

Explore what it means to express yourself through poetry, be inspired through readings by renowned poets, and craft your own verses at The Boutelle-Day Poetry Center.

CEEDS

Blend your cross-disciplinary knowledge and experiences in support of environmental decisions and actions with the Center for the Environment, Ecological Design, and Sustainability.

Conway Center

Assess the interconnectedness of people, planet, and profit when developing your solutions to pressing problems through the Conway Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center.

Design Thinking

Question gender, race, ethnicity, power, and ability as dynamics that shape who gets to participate in creating the worlds in which we live with the Design Thinking Initiative.

Jandon Center

Partner with communities to work on real-life issues and challenges and bring about real change through the Jandon Center for Community Engagement.

Smith student doing community service and hugging a child in school

Global Studies

Engage with international and intercultural issues to cultivate an understanding of the global context of a Smith education at the Lewis Global Studies Center.

Photo of students posing in front of ancient ruins in Italy

Reflective Practices

Deepen your knowledge of yourself, explore your passions and personal capacities, and articulate your values and goals through Reflective Practices.

Wurtele Center

Unlock your leadership capacities through workshops, programs, and talks geared toward creating equitable and thoughtful leaders at the Wurtele Center for Leadership.

In Practice

Reproductive Justice & Human Rights

Olivia Marchand ’28, STRIDE student for Human Rights Initiatives, presented her poster, “The War in Gaza: Women’s Reproductive Justice and Human Rights,” at the spring 2025 Celebrating Collaborations showcase. Marchand’s poster was the result of a semester-long independent research project with human rights leadership specialist Carrie Cuthbert that intersected with and expanded on Marchand’s involvement in reproductive justice programming and events.

My Global Story

My Global Story is a collaborative initiative between the Lewis Global Studies Center and Reflective Practices. Each January, international students opt in to an off-campus storytelling retreat, during which they reflect and talk about home, about their paths to college, and their Smith experiences.

Blackout Poetry Project

Each year, The Boutelle-Day Poetry Center and Design Thinking Initiative invite the Smith community to reimagine an iconic work of literature one page at a time through the Blackout Poetry Project, encouraging artwork and erasure poetry techniques as a means of transforming the work.