Office of the President
Dr. Molly Easo Smith became the eleventh President of Manhattanville College in 2009. A teacher and scholar of Shakespeare and Renaissance drama, Dr. Smith comes to Manhattanville after a long career in academia as a faculty member, Honors Director, Chair, Dean, and most recently, Provost, at liberal arts centered institutions.
Passionately committed to student, faculty, and staff development and the concept of life-long learning, she brings to Manhattanville a deep interest in traditions and a desire to chart bold and sustainable directions for the College by engaging the entire community. Dr. Smith believes in the transformative power of education, in inclusion and diversity as foundations for institutional excellence, and in the imperative to engage individually and collectively with the larger question of our place and purpose in the world and the universe.
Born and raised in India, Dr. Smith attended the University of Madras, where she received her BA and MA degrees in English; she has since lived in several US States as well as in Scotland, where she taught at the University of Aberdeen. She attributes her success and strengths to faculty and colleagues at universities in India, UK, and the US who served as her inspiration.
Dr. Smith has published two books on Shakespeare and his contemporaries as well as several essays in scholarly journals. Recently, she embarked on a journey of reflection by writing short stories based on her experiences in the southern Indian states of Madras and Kerala.