Senior Spotlight - Molly Smith
Colby has placed an emphasis on embracing the objectives of diversity, equity, and inclusion. While the Colby’s promotional activities may offer a superficial sense of support for these ideals, they don’t necessarily represent the sentiments of everyone in the community.
Colby seniors especially have an interesting perspective on the matter — they’ve been at the school for almost four years, and in that time they’ve witnessed the school undergo an enormous amount of change. They’re familiar with the external image that Colby projects to the rest of the world, but they also understand the internal realities of Mayflower Hill.
Molly Smith `21 believes that while Colby has certainly made significant progress in advancing the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion, the College still has a long way to go.
“I think that I would like the school to be genuine about it, and not just to look good,” Smith said. “Colby’s so white, but it’s also so rich, and I want the school to instead of just being like, ‘oh, this is good’ to understand the real validity of having diversity — ---economically, and racially, and sexually — every way that you can have diversity, I want [Colby] to want it genuinely, not just because it makes them look better.”
As a History major and an Anthropology minor, Smith’s favorite class that she’s ever taken is “History and Memory,” a class that examines how people and cultures remember things from the past, and how it shapes modern understanding of history.
The influence of this class on Molly’s academic path was certainly profound as demonstrated in her final project for the class, which had a personal element to it.
“[In] my final project I kind of delved into how my family remembers leaving the country of Ireland, and that was a really great opportunity to reflect on what it means to technically be part of America but miss a home country that you’ve never really been to, but also feeling like you don’t belong there,” Smith explained.
Getting in touch with her Irish heritage through the final project has even inspired her senior thesis.
“It’s about a particular revolutionary uprising in Ireland in 1916 called the Easter Rising,” Smith said, “and I’m comparing how the North of Ireland, which is still a part of the United Kingdom, remembers it and commemorates it versus how the Republic of Ireland remembers it.”
Smith’s interest in history also translates into her post-graduation plans — she wants to either become a history teacher, work in a history museum, or go into archaeology.
Outside of academics, Smith is on the Women’s rugby team, works at the front desk of the museum, and is part of the Oak Institute for Human Rights at Colby.
Smith had a very active role in the Oak Institute’s operation; however, her work there has subsided due to the institute undergoing a transition phase as a result of COVID-19.
Finally, as for what she would change if she could go back in time and redo her college experience, Smith offers these words of advice:
“Don’t sweat the small stuff, try not to get your head stuck in small drama because you’re only here for so little [time], so just try to get out of that as soon as possible.”
~ Hae-Jung Kim `24
