Your first year at HWS will be a time of learning, discovery and growth. Each step of the way, you'll have the support of our award-winning faculty and staff. Leading up to your arrival on campus, you’ll have opportunities to engage with our community virtually, preparing for the transition to college-level coursework and life at HWS. Once you arrive, you'll familiarize yourself with HWS and the greater Geneva community through Orientation, First-Year Seminars, Spark! projects and peer mentorship. You’ll start on your path to creating a life of consequence.
Join us for a series of 20-minute virtual discussions designed to introduce you to our community and help you learn more about the topics that are most important to you. Hear from faculty and staff on everything from life on campus to First-Year Seminars, the athletic experience to career preparation programs and more.
Monsters in American history. The chemistry of food. Birding. Archaeological mysteries. These are some of the interesting topics you can explore in your First-Year Seminar. Each course provides a foundation to develop your critical thinking and communication skills while helping you get familiar with academic expectations at HWS. The only course required of all students, you’ll create community among a cohort of peers, guided by a professor and supported by an upper level student mentor.
Orientation programming for incoming students spans the week leading up to the first day of classes.
Your college experience awaits you. Make sure you have all you need to be successful.
Are you the first in your family to go to college? This program provides resources, programming and support for first-generation students and their families.
You have questions, we have answers.
Learn more about the I-20 process and meet the International Student Coordinator.
Do you have an IEP or 504 Plan? Do you receive accommodations? Learn more about Disability Services and the support available to you as you transition from high school to higher education.
Spend time on campus this summer investigating environmental issues with HWS faculty.
Review the billing process and payment options before your first bill is due on Aug. 1.
Have your questions answered by Joey Tello Galicia '25 and Jillian VanLare '26, our Orientation Coordinators, orientation@hws.edu or (315)-781-3041.
hwsdeans@hws.edu
315-781-3467
The Deans are here to support students academically and to help students make the most out of their education and time at HWS. We can answer questions regarding academic plans, link students to the services on campus that can address their needs, and help students communicate with faculty and with other staff on campus.
The Deans offer first-year students academic advice and support around the following areas:
We encourage first-year and new transfer students to seek us out as they begin their academic experience at HWS. Students can find the Office of the Deans on the first floor of Smith Hall.
Kelly Payne, Ph.D. (she/her) joined Hobart and William Smith in 2018. In the Office of the Deans, Dean Payne serves as the advisor for the Laurel Honor Society and Hai Timiai senior honors society. Dean Payne also leads the mentorship efforts of the Laurel Connections program in which honor society students are paired with first-year students. In addition to advising and mentoring students, Dean Payne has experience teaching first-year seminars in the humanities, surveys of American and African American literature, professional development courses, and she has led a study abroad course in Belgium and the Netherlands on political dissidence in literature of the low countries. Dean Payne is a proud first-generation college graduate and the first in her family to earn a doctorate degree. She holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a graduate certificate in Nineteenth Century Studies, and a B.A. in English from Saint Mary’s College (Notre Dame, Indiana). She has assumed various faculty and administrative roles in her 20+ years in higher education. She currently serves as chair of the Emerging Scholars Award Committee for the Nineteenth Century Studies Association and has given presentations and webinars through the National Academic Advising Association on advising and ethics and the influence of the writer and theorist bell hooks. She also has published on several topics including nineteenth century reform literature, academic advising in the U.S. and the Civil Rights Movement, and on the significance of personal narratives in the education of first-generation college students.
Dean Mapstone works primarily with first-years and juniors. He develops strong individual relationships with students as well as coordinating a variety of universal programs in his approach to help students make a successful transition to Hobart College. Dean Mapstone directs the Back on Track academic support program, spOArk, and the Short-Term summer study abroad program in Wales. Mapstone serves on the Committee on Standards, the Admissions and Retentions Committee, the Committee on Athletics, serves as the advisor to the Druid Society, and is engaged in research on college athletics, student-athlete identity, and youth sport culture. Mapstone earned his BA from Hobart, an MS in Education from the University of Rochester, and is finishing a Ph.D. in Cultural Foundation of Education at Syracuse University. He lives with his wife, Kara, William Smith '92, and three children at Mapleton Farm, a small sustainable farm just east of Geneva.
Dean Mink joined the HWS Deans Office in 2018 after teaching for 18 years at Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, New College of Florida, and HWS. He holds a B.A. from the University of Denver and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania. Both his teaching and scholarship are deeply tied to the Liberal Arts. Mink has taught courses in American Studies, Urban Studies, and Critical Social Studies, in addition to courses in American Politics and Political Theory. His research focuses on how material space and embodied practices were employed in the 19th and 20th centuries in an attempt to insure ‘moderation’ in the private and political choices of individuals.
Before joining the Office of the Deans, Amy Green (she/her) was a member of the Writing and Rhetoric Department at Hobart and William Smith for eleven years and a Director of the Writing Colleagues Program for five years, during which time she enjoyed mentoring students, centering their experiences, and building one-on-one relationships with them. The Writing Colleagues Program offered her the opportunity to collaborate with faculty, staff, and students to build writerly communities in disciplines across campus. Dean Green enjoys teaching on topics that feature language as social action, such as her First-Year Seminar, “Writing and Resistance,” and courses like “Literate Lives,” “Writing and the Culture of Reading,” and “Suffrage and Citizenship in American Discourse.” Dean Green holds a B.A. in English and Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, an M.A. in English from PennWest University, and a Ph.D. in American Literature from West Virginia University. Her research interests include 19th century American women’s literature and the history of activism and resistance in America. Dean Green has been working in higher education for over 30 years, including 25+ years in faculty/instructional roles and 10+ years in advising.
Look back at the exciting news and accomplishments that shaped the year, from HWS’ #4 ranking in the Wall Street Journal to extraordinary momentum behind “Further Together: the Campaign for our Third Century.”
Hobart and William Smith honors Cynthia Gelsthorpe Fish ’82, L.H.D. ’23 and John F. Fish for their $25 million gift to key academic priority.
This winter break will feature four career treks, offering insights into careers in communications and marketing, business management, finance, politics and public policy.
