Molly E. Smith was born in Chennai (formerly Madras) in India and received her BA (English,  1978) from Ethiraj College for Women and her MA (English, 1980) from Madras Christian  College. She received her Ph.D. in Renaissance English drama from Auburn University in 1988.

Dr. Smith has held tenure track and tenured faculty and leadership positions in universities in the USA and UK. She served as Director of University Honors at Saint Louis University, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Seton Hall University, Provost at Wheaton College  (MA), and Saint Martin’s University. Dr. Smith also served as a permanent lecturer at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland for five years and as the eleventh President of Manhattanville College. She currently serves as Provost at Thomas More University. 

For over a decade, Dr. Smith was a member of the Board of Trustees of Fairleigh Dickinson University. She also served on the  Educational Policy and Finance Committees of the Board of Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her other memberships include the board of the Keio Academy of Japan in New York; local business councils in Westchester(NY) and Lacey (WA); and the Foundation Board of W. V. S. Tubman University in  Liberia (for a decade). 

As an Executive Committee member of the International Association of University Presidents (IAUP) between 2008 and 2011, Dr. Smith served as the organization’s representative to the  United Nations; she continues as a member of IAUP. Upon invitation,  Dr. Smith delivered the annual  Cardinal Henry Newman Lecture at Manhattan College in 2011. 

Selected to participate in a  Fulbright-Nehru Administrators Seminar in 2016, Dr. Smith visited several colleges and universities in India, including her alma mater, MCC. She has lectured on higher education, the liberal arts, women’s leadership, and Renaissance drama in several venues, including the  University of Regensburg in Germany, the University of the West Indies in Trinidad, and Mastercard Worldwide in New York City. 

Dr. Smith has published two books on Shakespeare and his contemporaries and articles on  Renaissance literature and drama. 

We are proud to have Dr. Smith as a member of our International Advisory Board.