Molly Easo Smith
Dr. Molly Easo Smith (born 1958 in Chennai, India) is an Indian-American professor and scholar of Shakespeare and Renaissance drama. She was named the eleventh President of Manhattanville College after a long and distinguished career as a faculty member, scholar, and administrator.
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Dr. Molly Easo Smith
Biography
Born in Chennai (formerly Madras) in India, Dr. Smith graduated from Ethiraj Women’s College and Madras Christian College in the University of Madras, with BA and MA degrees in English, respectively, and from Auburn University with a Ph.D. in English Literature in 1988. She has lived and worked in several states in the United States as well as in Scotland, where she taught Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama at the University of Aberdeen[1]. Dr. Smith has published two books on Shakespeare and his contemporaries as well as several essays on Renaissance drama and literature. Recently, she embarked on a journey of reflection by writing short stories based on her childhood in the southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala[2].
Dr. Smith believes in the transformative power of education, in inclusion and diversity as foundations for institutional excellence, and in the imperative to engage individually and collectively with the larger question of our place and purpose in the world and the universe. Passionately committed to student, faculty, and staff development and the concept of life-long learning, she brings to Manhattanville a deep interest in traditions and a desire to chart bold and sustainable directions for the College by engaging the entire community.
She attributes her deep commitment to education to the early influence of several women in her family, including her mother and grandmother, and her success as a scholar-teacher and administrator to faculty and colleagues in India, Scotland, and the US[3]. Her most recent inspirations have been former presidents Mother Frances Burnett, Mother Grace Dammann, and Mother Eleanor O’Byrne, whose visionary leadership continues to propel the life of the College. To her spouse, Dr. Duane Howard Smith, who is both her most ardent supporter and her most candid friend, she owes more than she can account for in words.
Dr. Smith was inaugurated as Manhattanville College’s eleventh president on April 7, 2010. The joyous inauguration ceremony – themed “Living Our Legacy with Pride; Forging Our Future With Vision” – was attended by distinguished academics, as well as international dignitaries, including Ambassador Prabhu Dayal, Consul General of India in New York[4], Sila Calderon former Governor of Puerto Rico and alumna of the College, and former spouse of Senator Ted Kennedy, Mrs. Joan Bennett Kennedy, who is also an alumna.
President and Dr. Smith are proud grandparents of Eldan Christopher Smith, and parents of Christopher Owen Smith.
Books
Breaking Boundaries: Politics and Play in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (1998)
The Darker World Within: Evil in the Tragedies of Shakespeare and his Successors (1991)
References
- ^ http://webmalayalee.com/portal/2010/04/20/dr-molly-easo-smiththe-11th-president-of-manhattanville-college/
- ^ http://www1.mville.edu/inauguration/Molly-Easo-Smith.html
- ^ http://www.lohud.com/article/99999999/NEWS02/105100008/Journey-for-Manhattanville-s-president-began-in-India
- ^ http://news.rediff.com/report/2010/may/07/molly-smith-inaugurated-as-head-of-manhattanville-college.htm