The gifts, both from alumnae, will enable Smith to move forward on the most ambitious capital construction project the college has ever undertaken. The latter will be based both in the undergraduate college and in Smith's School for Social Work. The new project will add 52,000 square feet to the current buildings, which opened in 1972 on the site of the original Hillyer, Tryon, and Graham halls. At that time, his bequest was Smith's largest gift to date. The college's Department of Art offers majors in art history, studio art, and architecture and counts a number of highly distinguished scholars and artists among its faculty.
Art consistently ranks among the top three most popular majors in the college.
The renovation and expansion project, to be conducted by Polshek Partnership, a New York-based architectural firm, is scheduled to begin early in 2000. When completed approximately two years later, it will allow more of the art collection to be displayed and studied in the museum, enhance teaching spaces, and provide student exhibition galleries and study areas in the library. The current art slide and photographic collections will be incorporated into a master catalogue, to become the basis for a high-resolution digitized image computer database accessible to all parts of campus. Suzannah Fabing, director of the museum, concurred, noting that Smith students and students and teachers from area school systems are spending more time in the museum than ever before, using images to enhance their knowledge of subjects ranging from economics to history to literature. The renovations and expansion will help us better serve both the campus and the community.