by Cassandra Linder

And Then There Were Adas…

Smith College News offcial announcement of the Ada Comstock Scholars Program.
Articles and clippings, 1975-ongoing. CA-MS-01052 and Ada Comstock Scholars Program records. Smith College Special Collections, Smith College Archives, Northampton, Massachusetts.

The Ada Comstock Scholars Program officially went underway in September 1975.1 The initial class consisted of 35 members, 18 of which were in the program the previous year.2

The program was one of the first of its kind and served as a model for many other similar program across the country. However, Smith was often chosen above others due to the amount of support they received from the college.3

The originally defined typical Ada Comstock Scholar was a “woman of non-traditional age who completes her degree at her own pace while she attends the same classes and fulfills the same requirements as do undergraduates of traditional age.”4 While this is not the case now, the program allowed Adas to take as little as one course per semester 5; however, despite this, many Adas chose to take a full-time course load.

At its peak, the program consisted of 409 Adas 6; however, the program’s numbers have steadily decreased since then with the program now have 62 Adas currently as of 2022.7

Footnotes

  1. Ada Comstock Scholars. Box 92, Folder 1. CA-MS-00071 and Office of the President Jill Ker Conway files. Smith College Special Collections, Smith College Archives, Northampton, Massachusetts. ↩
  2. Ada Comstock Scholars. Box 92, Folder 1. CA-MS-00071 and Office of the President Jill Ker Conway files. Smith College Special Collections, Smith College Archives, Northampton, Massachusetts. ↩
  3. Bourque, Susan C. “Reimagining Women’s Education: Jill Ker Conway, Smith College, and the ADA Comstock Scholars Program.” Junctures in Women’s Leadership, 2020, pp. 82–98., https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813586243-009. ↩
  4. Ada Comstock Program, 1975. Box 132, Folder 11. CA-MS-00071 and Office of the President Jill Ker Conway Files. Smith College Special Collections, Smith College Archives, Northampton, Massachusetts. ↩
  5. Ada Comstock Program, 1975. Box 132, Folder 11. CA-MS-00071 and Office of the President Jill Ker Conway Files. Smith College Special Collections, Smith College Archives, Northampton, Massachusetts. ↩
  6. Ada Comstock Scholars cuts protests, 1990s. Box 3023. CA-MS-00317 and Student Demonstrations collection. Smith College Special Collections, Smith College Archives, Northampton, Massachusetts. ↩
  7. Office of the Registrar. “Fall Enrollments (2020-present).” Smith College, Oct. 2022. ↩