Exploring how college women envision their lives, ideas of success, expectations, and hopes for the future

As a mother, partner to her husband Philippe in building Telemedia (a media business) and early advocate of hiring women as managers in the company, Nan-b de Gaspé Beaubien has always been interested in how women juggle work, family, wellness, friendships and values. After reading Smith College President Carol T. Christ’s paper Inside the Clockwork of Women’s Careers, and being a Smith College alumna herself, Nan-b, along with the Foundation, awarded a three-year grant in response to a proposal submitted by Smith College to create the Women’s Narratives Project. The goal was to bring women together to engage in new thinking about the meaning of success.

Smith College, in consultation with the Foundation, developed educational programs that draw on research and personal experience and held workshops and panels aimed to advance the national discussion on women and work-life balance, offer new models, and encourage women at all stages of life to reflect on and rewrite their own narratives.