The Hunter Smith Family Foundation has gifted $10 million to The College of William & Mary to establish an endowment for its freshman seminars.
The foundation, located in Charlottesville, is named for Martinsville native and W&M alumna Hunter Smith, who graduated from the college in 1951. Smith majored in philosophy and was a member of Pi Beta Phi Sorority. With her late husband, Carl, she has supported major higher education initiatives at the University of Virginia and its College at Wise.
“The idea of making a gift in support of freshman seminars appealed to me on many levels,” she told W&M News. “The seminars fit the profile of William & Mary very well and give freshman important experiences that develop independent thinking and writing skills.”
Her gift established the Hunter J. Smith Endowment for Freshman Seminars. The seminars began at the college in 1993. The classes are limited to 15 students for closer interaction between professor and student. The seminars aim to introduce freshman to analytical thinking and writing, along with college-level research methods. About 100 freshman seminars are offered each year. This semester, seminar topics include “From Cavemen to Kings,” “Anthropology of Food,” “Astrophotography” and “Emerging Diseases.”
“They often can form the basis of a mentoring relationship between faculty and students and are foundational to a student’s introduction to the academic experience,” said Kate Conley, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
