The first master’s degrees were awarded by the college in 1896, and in the tenth year that graduate degrees were handed out, the first woman received one.
Smith alumna Elizabeth Hight Smith arrived at MAC in 1901. Born in Brookline on January 12, 1877, she lived at home in Amherst while studying in the graduate program. She graduated with her M.S. in 1905 (the same year the first two women undergraduates earned bachelor’s degrees).
Smith went on to teach plant pathology at the University of California Berkeley, first as an instructor, then as assistant professor, from 1905 until her death in a traffic accident in 1933.