Smith College’s Wurtele Center Refreshes Name to Reflect Expanded Definition of Leadership

Smith College’s Wurtele Center for Leadership will now be known as the Wurtele Center for Collaborative Leadership, a subtle but important change intended to better reflect the center’s mission and purpose.

“This is more like an edit rather than a complete name change,” said Erin Park Cohn ’00, the center’s director. “It’s a much clearer representation of what we actually do, and it provides better wayfinding for students, in particular, about what we mean when we talk about leadership.”

Specifically, the updated name clarifies the center’s more expansive definition of leadership, conveying in sharper terms that leading can take many forms. “Leadership is such a capacious concept. Without more specificity, it’s easy for people to put their own understanding of what that term means and what they think we do here,” Cohn said. “That means that there can be some confusion about our mission.”

The change comes as the center embarks on a strategic planning process and reflects on its goals, especially now that it shares a home with the Lazarus Center for Career Development in the new Kathleen McCartney Hall, which officially opened in October after a year of construction.

The updated name directly addresses a pattern that Cohn and others noticed among students, namely the belief that collaboration and leadership can’t coexist. “Some people think that those two things are mutually exclusive, that if you’re collaborating you’re not leading,” Cohn said. “We know that’s not the case. Nature runs on collaboration. There’s a way of engaging in change-making that draws on group dynamics, conflict navigation, and designing processes that maximize a group’s strengths. Those skills are useful if you have a big fancy title, but they’re also useful if you don’t. That’s still leadership.”

Alongside its new name, the Wurtele Center is developing a set of core principles, skills, and frameworks that align with the college’s new strategic plan, which will be released at the end of the year. These concepts will shape the center’s programming and initiatives in the years ahead. Among the ideas being discussed are recognizing that leadership is not always positional—someone who holds the corner office versus someone who does not—and ensuring that all forms of leadership center human dignity and respect.

Students have responded enthusiastically to the center’s refreshed focus. Some students, Cohn noted, arrive at Smith with preconceived notions of leadership, shaped by societal expectations and outdated stereotypes. Spending time at the center teaches them to reexamine their assumptions. “What they’re hearing at the Wurtele Center is different than what they’ve received in the past, and some students are surprised by that,” she said. “But the great thing is that when presented with something new, many of them feel very seen and, perhaps for the first time, understand that they can have an impact.”