Dr. Smallwood has served as a lecturer for the University of Memphis High School Scholars Seminar and has spoken at the Federal Correctional Institution in Memphis. Additionally, he has served as a judge for the Tennessee History Day program, spoken to the residents of Richardson Towers and participated in the Southern Festival of Books.
He is currently working with the National Civil Rights Museum to assist in the development of a national curriculum for grades 4 – 8 and to start a national advisory board of scholars to assist the museum in its work on Civil Rights.
Smallwood has served as a lecturer for Phi Alpha Theta, a panel member for the Black Student Government Association, and lecturer for Memphis middle and high school teachers. He was invited by History Makers of Chicago, IL to lecture on relations between Blacks and Indians during the colonial era, nominated to submit an application for membership in the Leadership Memphis executive program class of 2008, and worked to honor the “Memphis State Eight” He has also served as a consultant for the Historic Hope Foundation of Windsor, North Carolina.
He has been nominated for the Igniting Excitement Award sponsored by Black Scholars, re-nominated for membership in Leadership Memphis, and chaired a number of sessions for the 9th African-American History Conference. He has or currently is serving on several departmental committees including the Tenure and Promotion committee, Undergraduate Studies Committee, and the Graduate Studies Committee, the review committee for Faculty Research Grants, Graduate Studies Committee, the Library Committee, Freshman Convocation Committee, the University Appeals Committee, Faculty Advisory Committee for the Benjamin Hooks Institute for Social Change, the Chair of the Department of History’s Advisory Committee, the Endowment Committee and Tenure and Promotion Committee, among others. He has also served as chair of the US Survey Committee (tasked with selecting a new U. S. History textbook for the department), and chair of the Public Relations Committee (tasked with redesigning the department’s website).
Smallwood has also served as a commenter for papers presented at the 25th Annual Mid-America Historical conference and the Fifth Annual Graduate Students Conference in African American History. He has served on the Local Arrangements Committee for the Tennessee Conference of Historians, and on the committee to establish African-American History as a focus area in the department of history. As a member of this committee he helped redesign existing graduate and undergraduate courses and create new core courses for the Ph.D. field in African-American History. He also actively recruits students for the Ph.D. program in the department of history.