Carol Christ

president, Smith College

Born in New York City in 1944, Christ attended public schools in northern New Jersey. In 1966 she graduated with high honors from Douglass College and went on to Yale University, where she received the Ph.D. in English. In 1970 Christ joined the English faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. As chair of her department from 1985 to 1988, she built and maintained one of the top-ranked English departments in the country. She entered the university