Kathleen McCartney

Kathleen
 McCartney is the 11th president of Smith College. A summa cum laude graduate of Tufts University, she earned master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology from Yale University. Since assuming the Smith presidency in 2013, McCartney has led a strategic planning effort that is resulting in important new academic and cocurricular programs that expand opportunities for women. Previously McCartney was dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE)—only the fifth woman dean in Harvard’s history—a position she held from 2005 through 2013. A signature accomplishment of her tenure was the creation of a three-year doctorate in educational leadership developed in collaboration with the Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. She also developed a Ph.D. program in collaboration with Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Other accomplishments include dramatically increasing fellowship support for doctoral students, establishing the Center for the Developing Child and forging partnerships with local school districts. A thought leader on issues of gender, education and parenting, McCartney publishes essays and letters in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Worth magazine, CNN.com, The Boston Globe and The Huffington Post. This story is an excerpt from remarks shared at Ivy Day, 2015.