• College/Year: NCAS '70, GSNB '74
  • Links to Oral History Sessions: Smith, Sharon P. (July 30, 2021)

Sharon P. Smith was born in Jersey City in 1948 and grew up in Jersey City and Fanwood. From 1966 to 1970, she attended the Rutgers Newark College of Arts and Sciences, where she majored in economics. She was a member of the sorority Delta Phi Delta, as well as the service sorority Alpha Iota Delta. She earned a Ph.D. in economics at Rutgers University. She worked as a research associate studying federal-private pay differentials on a National Science Foundation grant with Albert Rees at Princeton. For five years, she worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Then, she worked at AT&T in economic analysis, labor relations, and corporate strategy and development. Along with Albert Rees, she undertook a study of faculty retirement in higher education, after which she decided to go into higher education administration. She served as the dean of the College of Business Administration and Graduate School of Business Administration, now the Gabelli School of Business, at Fordham University for fifteen years. After working as provost at National University, she became president of the University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg in 2007 and held the post until retiring in 2019. She is the author of many works including Equal Pay in the Public Sector: Fact or Fantasy and Finding the Best Business School for You: Looking Past the Rankings.