The Women of William Smith
William Smith College officially opened in September of 1908 with nineteen students in the first class. The women of the Charter Class came from various places both within and outside of New York State. As the first class to attend William Smith College they were responsible for choosing the school colors, writing the Alma Mater, designing the school seal, and creating the first self-government committee.
The Hobart campus was off limits to the William Smith students. They were permitted to go to the library and the chapel, but had to use public sidewalks to get there. According to a William Smith College history pamphlet from 1959, the members of the Charter Class were known on at least one occasion to have trespassed on the Hobart campus.
"Some two months after its doors were opened, dark green having been chosen as the official color, the whole freshman class, the only class then in existence, stole quietly out of Blackwell House on a dark November midnight and painted a large white '12 on the green board fence of the Hobart athletic field. It was not till long afterward that the girls learned that several Hobart students were jointly accused of this vandalism and saved from expulsion only by lack of proof."
