Smith was part of a generation of Black students who desegregated elite private colleges and universities. Nationally, in 1965, around 2% of the higher education student population identified as Black. With the advocacy and gains of the Civil Rights Movement, new social norms were being established. At the time, it was common for Black students to either have single dormitory rooms or live with each other as roommates. The above rooming chart for Black and international students for the 1967-1968 academic year at Mount Holyoke is from the year Smith studied at The New School. This document demonstrates the intentionality of college staff to maintain segregation and surveillance of Black students. While difficult to discern in the digital version of the document, her would-have-been roommate seems to have been erased, despite her expressed interest in rooming with “a person comfortable living with someone different than herself.”
The attrition rate of Black students was noteworthy as demonstrated by this article printed at the time of Smith’s graduation in the Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, a local newspaper. By this point Smith herself had unenrolled from Mount Holyoke and completed a year’s worth of studies at The New School in New York City during her junior year.