 Smith has taught at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York, the University of Pittsburgh and Columbia University.She taught summer sessions at Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College in 2011, 2012, and 2014 and was the 2014 Robert Frost Chair of Literature.In 2006 she joined the faculty of Princeton University, where she was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor in the Humanities.