Kathleen McCartney (born 1956) is an American academic administrator, currently serving as the 11th president of Smith College. She took office as Smith’s president on October 19, 2013. Smith College, located in Northampton, Massachusetts, is a liberal arts college and one of the Seven Sisters colleges.

Early life and education

McCartney was born in Medford, Massachusetts. The first in her family to attend college, she graduated ''summa cum laude'' from

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

and earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

Career

McCartney came to Smith from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she was dean, and the Gerald S. Lesser Professor in Early Childhood Development. During her tenure at Harvard, the school introduced a three-year doctorate in educational leadership in collaboration with the Harvard Business School and

Kennedy School of Government The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...

. Prior teaching and research experience includes service as a tenured associate professor of psychology and family studies as well as director of the Child Study and Development Center at the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, m ...

. Since assuming the Smith presidency, McCartney has launched initiatives on college access and affordability,

design thinking Design thinking refers to the set of cognitive, strategic and practical procedures used by designers in the process of designing, and to the body of knowledge that has been developed about how people reason when engaging with design problems. Des ...

, and the liberal arts, women in STEM and the capacities women need to succeed and lead. Under her leadership, Smith has engaged architectural designer

Maya Lin Maya Ying Lin (born October 5, 1959) is an American designer and sculptor. In 1981, while an undergraduate at Yale University, she achieved national recognition when she won a national design competition for the planned Vietnam Veterans Memoria ...

to re-imagine its historic Neilson Library as an intellectual commons at the heart of the college campus. The expected completion date for the project is fall 2020.Smith College website (http://www.smith.edu/libraries/about/new-neilson)

Research and academic interests

McCartney’s research has focused on early experience and development, particularly with respect to child care, early childhood education, and poverty. She has published more than 150 articles and book chapters on those topics and was the principal researcher for Child Care and Child Development, a 20-year study published in 2005 that examined whether early and extensive child care disrupted the mother-child relationship. She co-edited ''Experience and Development'', ''The Blackwell Handbook of Early Childhood Development'', and ''Best Practices in Developmental Research Methods''. In 1983, McCartney and

Sandra Scarr Sandra Wood Scarr (August 8, 1936 – October 8, 2021) was an American psychologist and writer. She was the first female full professor in psychology in the history of Yale University. She established core resources for the study of development, ...

published a developmental theory of gene-environment correlation. McCartney has written extensively on issues of gender, education and parenting, including essays and letters in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', ''Worth'',

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

, ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'', and ''

HuffPost ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

''. McCartney is a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

, the

American Educational Research Association The American Educational Research Association (AERA, pronounced "A-E-R-A") is a professional organization representing education researchers in the United States and around the world. AERA's mission is to advance knowledge about education and p ...

, the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

, and the

American Psychological Society The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in ...

Awards and honors

A developmental psychologist, McCartney was the recipient in 2009 of the Distinguished Contribution Award from the

Society for Research in Child Development The Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) is a professional society for the field of human development, focusing specifically on child development. It is a multidisciplinary, not-for-profit, professional association with a membership o ...

. In 2011 ''

'' named her one of the 30 most innovative people in Massachusetts. In 2013, she received the Harvard College Women’s Professional Achievement Award, which honors an individual who has demonstrated exceptional leadership in her professional field. In March 2015, she was elected to the Board of Directors of the

American Council on Education The American Council on Education (ACE) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) U.S. higher education association established in 1918. ACE's members are the leaders of approximately 1,700 accredited, degree-granting colleges and universities and higher educatio ...

(ACE). The ''Boston Business Journal'' named her one of its 2016 Women of Influence, citing her extensive work on early childhood education.

References

External links

Smith College biography

Office of the President Kathleen McCartney files
at

Smith College Archives Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college with coed graduate and certificate programs, located in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. The Smith College Archives document the life of the College by collecting mat ...

, Smith College Special Collections {{DEFAULTSORT:McCartney, Kathleen American psychologists American women psychologists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Harvard Graduate School of Education faculty University of New Hampshire faculty Tufts University alumni Yale University alumni 1956 births Living people People from Medford, Massachusetts Presidents of Smith College Women heads of universities and colleges American women academics 21st-century American women