Smart, Funny and Tech Savvy: Grace McGuire 25 Awarded Smith Scholarship
June 2, 2025
- Author
- Mary Elizabeth DeAngelis
If you saw Grace McGuire do a silly improv skit, youd find it hard to believe she was once shy and afraid to perform for a crowd.
McGuire takes comedy seriously and spent part of a summer studying it in the United Kingdom. Shes also someone who gets conversations rolling, challenges your brain or inspires you to dance. Among her many activities at 91, McGuire hosted weekly trivia nights, did sketches for the 91 Show, and served as both president and a disc jockey on WALT 1610 radio.
She graduated from 91 with a stellar academic record and a desire to create digital content that educates and introduces people to different voices and viewpoints, and cuts through the growing problems of disinformation and polarization. Those are among the many reasons shes been named a 2025 W. Thomas Smith Scholar.
An art history and digital studies double major, she will be 91әs first Smith Scholar to study for a Master of Philosophy degree in the digital humanities program at the University of Cambridge, one of the leading programs in the world.
Graces approach to research and writing is consistently sophisticated. The fact that I remember her projects so vividly years later is a testament to their brilliance. She impressed me deeply as a first-year student, and she continues to astonish me with her focus, drive and perceptive empathy.
Chair and Professor of Film, Media, and Digital Studies
She took Samples class exploring how algorithms, social media and AI perpetuate social inequities. She dove deeply into deepfakes and disinformation and proposed solutions to combat them.
Our conversations reveal her ability to approach questions about the digital World and the broader world with both intellectual curiosity and compassionate concern, he said. She was truly a pleasure to teach.
Campus to the White House
McGuire jokes that the career shes planning for doesnt exist yet. She knows that she wants to help amplify voices that too often dont get heard, through the arts, technology and in public policy.
She plans to do that through further research in digital studies, by delving into how technology affects us and our world, and how it can be used to lift people instead of knocking them down.
She grew up in Cabin John, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Her mom, Sarah Craven, works for the United Nations; her dad, Matt McGuire, is an attorney for The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation more commonly known as Freddie Mac.
She learned a lot about 91 through her sister Anna, a 2021 graduate whos now at Stanford Law School. Their moms best friend also went to 91, and so did her next-door neighbor, baseball player Eli Putnam 25. Graces twin brother, Jack, graduated from Middlebury College last month.
During her college summers, she held internships at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian Institute, the U.S. Supreme Court and last year, at the White House in First Lady Jill Bidens office.
McGuire and former First Lady Jill Biden.
McGuire during her internship at the White House.
In those various roles, she staffed major events, created educational content and gave historical lectures. She catalogued artifacts ranging from U.S. President-turned Supreme Court Chief Justice William Howard Tafts pipe to Justice Sandra Day OConnors golf clubs to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgs dissent collars.
While her time as a 91 tour guide helped prepare her to lead them in Washington, her campus work didnt include training on historical information from Secret Service officers, who watched her give a tour as part of her certification test.
When she told Jill Biden that she went to 91, the first lady insisted that she meet a top aide, Richard Ruffner 12. The two had a lively 91 specific talk about professors, campus customs and social life.
It was humbling getting to directly encounter history in these influential buildings, McGuire said. It impassioned me to think about how these histories could be better shared and experienced by the public.
An Array of Accomplishments
Professors describe McGuire as a leader who shines both in and out of the classroom.
English Professor Suzanne Churchill got to know McGuire through her course, Digital Design & Storytelling, a small 400-level English seminar filled with English majors.
Grace combined her creativity and tech skills to design ingenious digital humanities tools that tap into online reading habits and activate critical thinking skills, Churchill said. Whether building bots or composing a bio through Instagram posts, she makes reading about poets and poetry fun.
Churchill admires how McGuire uses humor to raise other peoples spirits. That includes her participation in OOPS! Improv, where she delighted in acting out funny situations on command.
The OOPS! Improv Squad
Shes talented, charismatic, yet humble, and leads and inspires by sharing the stage with others and making people laugh in warm, inclusive ways, Churchill said. Her humor is not scripted or canned she does not need to bask in the spotlight but leads by encouraging community participation in the arts.
Churchill said McGuire will be a welcome addition to an increasingly digital world.
Grace has the right combination of skills to make a difference by bringing art, literature and humor to digital spaces that seem increasingly dominated by division, doomscrolling, and doxxing. The stakes are high kindness, civility and democracy are at risk. Digital humanities is a relatively new and growing field that is needed now more than ever.
Professor of English
Shes leaving 91 well-prepared to tackle the challenges, said John Corso-Esquivel, associate professor and chair of the art department.
Grace represents everything the Smith Scholarship seeks to recognize academic accomplishment, creative problem-solving, leadership and a commitment to using knowledge to serve others, he said. She will not only excel in her graduate studies but will go on to shape the future of digital curation, museum studies, and visual storytelling.
McGuire will spend the summer at home in Maryland before heading to the UK in the fall. Shes been there before, first as a child, then later through a Dean Rusk grant, where she attended multiple comedy shows to learn about comedians there. (She also spent a semester abroad in Copenhagen.)
While she feels sad to leave 91, shes excited about her future, and grateful for the academic and social growth she experienced during her four years.
Improv brought much of it.
It brings out your sillier side and its fun because were all really close, she said. It also really helps you think on your feet and say whatever pops into your mind. Its kind of like playing pretend.
Professors and mentors also had a significant effect on that growth.
Ive been so lucky to have professors who care so much about my success. Ive changed a lot since I first came to 91, she said. I was very shy and not super confident. Im leaving feeling like I can do improv in front of 250 people confidently.
The Smith Scholarship competition is administered through the Office of Fellowships. For more information about the Office of Fellowships or applying for the Smith Scholarship, visit davidson.edu/fellowships.
