Mary Margaret Smith ’90

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While still an undergraduate, Mary Smith has been the backbone of the women’s studies program, credited with many developments and innovations that have made the program flourish in recent years. It is possible that she is unique in UCLA history, functioning simultaneously as a top student and as the major administrative support for an academic program.

A “non-traditional” student, who was unable to finish college in her younger years because of family circumstances, Smith has worked her way through UCLA while maintaining superior grades. She has been employed full-time in the women’s studies office since 1980, serving as program administrator since 1986. In this position, Smith has shown great initiative, working well beyond her job description in building the women’s studies program. For example, she organized the thematic public lecture series that is now one of the most successful features of the program.

Smith has also enriched campus life in ways unrelated to her job. Every year since 1980, she has coordinated Women’s Week activities on campus and served on the advisory committee for the Rape Education and Prevention Project. Deeply concerned with the betterment of women’s lives, Smith is a past president of the California National Organization for Women (NOW) and has served on the NOW National Board of Directors.

Because of her life experiences and uncanny grasp of women’s issues, some of her professors think of her more as a colleague than an undergraduate. Her critical intelligence combined with her concern for people make Smith the epitome of what women’s studies faculty hope that all their students become.