Rate My Professor Whitney Womack Smith

Whitney Womack Smith, Professor of English and Chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Writing at Miami University Regionals (Hamilton and Middletown campuses), earned her Ph.D. in British and American Literature from Purdue University in 1999, M.A. in English from University of Missouri-Columbia in 1993, and B.A. in English from University of Missouri-Columbia in 1991. Her research specializations encompass 19th-century literature and culture, women's writing, transatlantic studies, and issues in higher education. She has joined Miami University since 1998 and advanced to her current leadership role. Smith's scholarly contributions include co-editing Representing Rural Women with Margaret Thomas-Evans (Lexington Press, 2019) and Race and Transatlantic Identities with Elizabeth Kenney and Sirpa Salenius (Routledge, 2017). Notable publications feature “Transformative Change at Miami University's Regional Campuses” with Cathy Bishop-Clark, Moira Casey, and Marianne Cotugno (Routledge, 2019); “Codes of Kinship: Rural Poverty and Female Resilience in Winter’s Bone” with H. Louise Davis (Lexington Press, 2019); “‘Blind Tom’ Abroad: Race, Disability, and Transatlantic Representations of Thomas Wiggins” in Journal of Transatlantic Studies (2016), reprinted in Race and Transatlantic Identities (2017); “Nontraditional Honors” with Janice Kinghorn in Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (2013); “Stowe, Gaskell, and the Woman Reformer” in Transatlantic Stowe, edited by Emily Todd, Denise Kohn, and Sarah Meer (University of Iowa Press, 2006); and “Reforming Women’s Reform Literature: Rebecca Harding Davis’s Rewriting of the Industrial Novel” in Our Sisters’ Keepers, edited by Debra Bernardi and Jill Bergman (University of Alabama Press, 2005).

Whitney Womack Smith has received major awards including Miami University’s Distinguished Service Award (2022), Prodesse Quam Conspici Award for Servant Leadership (2022), Outstanding Educator Award from Cincy Magazine (2019), Faculty Achievement in Academic Advising Award from Miami Regionals (2017), YWCA Hamilton Outstanding Woman of Achievement for Higher Education (2014), Excellence in Service Award from Miami University Hamilton (2011), Celebration of Teaching Award from Greater Cincinnati Consortium of Colleges and Universities (2004), and Excellence in Teaching Award from Miami University Hamilton (2004). She serves as President of Miami University's Iota of Ohio chapter of Phi Beta Kappa and holds a position on the editorial board of the Journal of Transatlantic Studies. Her publications and leadership have impacted scholarship on transatlantic identities, representations of rural women, and higher education practices for nontraditional students.