Women and Gender Studies

My name is Leslie Smith. I’m an associate professor of Religious Studies here at Avila. My primary appointment is in the Religious Studies and Philosophy department and then I also direct the Women’s and Gender Studies department, and I’ve been at Avila for about 10 years.

What I really like to think about the major as is a way that you learn a certain set of skills that you could use in any number of realms of life. And that is one of the things that I’m most proud of with the Religious Studies and Philosophy program — is that we teach you a number of skills that really help you to be prepared not just for whatever job comes next, but also for all of the hurdles and the various parts of life beyond the workplace. We want you to be able to walk into any sort of setting and say, “I wonder why this setting works this way,” or “I wonder how to solve this problem,” and to feel like you’ve got the tools at hand to do that.

So I have a real heart for first-generation students and for students who come from more difficult backgrounds in terms of education and college and degree acquisition. I wasn’t a first-generation student — my dad did have a college degree — but when I was in junior high I lived with my single mom and she worked two or three jobs and she went to college part-time. And she and I actually went to college together, which is one of the reasons why I have such an affection for many of our students at Avila, because I know that sometimes life is really hard and I know that college is even harder to pack into your life and pay for and all of these different things that we have to think about and how to balance our time.

But I mentioned that because on my first day of college — my very first day of my freshman semester — was the very first day of her senior year. And we met for lunch that day at the Pizza Hut in the Student Union and ate pizza together. And I just remember being so proud of her and being so aware, even as an 18 year old, of the greatness of what she was doing. And so although I was able to complete, thanks to her many sacrifices, my own college degree — my own bachelor’s degree in four years — and to do graduate school, again thanks to her many sacrifices, there is something that is really satisfying to me in working with students who don’t necessarily come from backgrounds with a lot of college education and who are really trying to figure out this college thing, aren’t really sure if this is the place for them, if this is a good fit, or if college is even a good fit.

I love to work with those students because I had those exact same thoughts. And I can point directly to various professors but also people like my mom who were there for me to say this is an important part of your emotional and psychological development. And so that’s one of the reasons why I really enjoy working with many of our Avila students — is that they’re very diverse, they come from all different backgrounds, all different walks of life. But I know that college today is a real struggle for many of them, and I just find it really fulfilling to be able to reach out to those people who remind me a lot of myself and to some degree my mom in the past.