St. Peter student receives prestigious book award

St. Peter High School junior Emily Sustaita recently received the prestigious Smith College (Northhampton, Mass.) Book Award during a presentation in mid-May at the SPHS main office with local Smith Club of MN alum Sabrina Infante (‘96).

Smith College’s Book Award program recognizes an outstanding junior in a participating school’s community who exemplifies the academic achievement, leadership qualities, and civic engagement that characterize the thousands of women who have graduated from Smith College. The student embodies these qualities and serves as an example of scholarship and community service.

“I feel very honored to receive such an award,” Sustaita, the daughter of Ana and Pedro Sustaita of St. Peter said. “It means a lot to see where my efforts have taken me. Either way, I will continue to work hard and learn all that I can.

Infante presented Sustaita with a certificate and a copy of “Up Home: One Girl’s Journey” (2023), the NYT Bestselling biography and memoir by Ruth Simmons, former President of Smith College (1995-2001), and first African-American woman to lead an Ivy League school. Following the presentation, Emma and Sabrina shared a love of literature and poetry, and discussed what it means to be a liberal arts major at a women’s college in the northeast.

Smith College is located in Northampton, Massachusetts. and is one of the largest and most prestigious liberal arts colleges for women in the country, drawing its 2,500 students from 48 states and 72 countries. Its rigorous and varied curriculum is taught by a world-class faculty of teacher-scholars in over 50 fields.

“For more than one hundred years, Smith has offered full educational opportunities and competitive scholarships for women who have gone on to further study at the graduate level and careers in virtually every field,” Infante said. “Smith was also the first women’s college in the U.S. to offer a program in engineering. As graduates of Smith, we at the Smith Club of MN are pleased to help encourage local high school women to be their best, and are delighted to recognize them for their successes.”