The inaugural class of University of Mississippi Diversity Innovator Award recipients are professors who have found ways to not only serve their communities, but also strive to incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion principles into their teaching and research, as well as the lives of their students.
Dr. Smith is recognized for her commitment to representation in her department, her classrooms, her research and even in the university’s Faculty Senate.
As the chair of the Department of Psychology’s diversity committee, she has worked with her team to completely revamp the way to recruit and eventually select new faculty and graduate students.
Smith has also worked to see non-tenure-track faculty receive representation in the Faculty Senate. This group of hundreds of Ole Miss faculty members previously had no representation in shared governance.
In her research, Smith examines men and women in the STEM workforce.
“When you’re in the room doing the work, you know you’re doing good work, but you don’t always know that other people see that,” she said. “You feel more like a troublemaker who won’t let it go. But recognition like this shows that our work isn’t being ignored; it’s being valued.”
