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Ruth J. Simmons, eighteenth president of Brown University
Ruth J. Simmons was named 18th president of Brown University on November 9, 2000, and was sworn in on July 3, 2001. She holds a faculty appointment as professor comparative literature and Africana studies. Ruth J. Simmons was sworn in as the 18th president of Brown University on July 3, 2001. She also holds appointment as professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Department of Africana Studies. She was president of Smith College from 1995 until the time of her appointment at Brown. 
Propelled by personal and professional experience, Simmons advocates on behalf of education and its ability to encourage “excellence, daringness of mind and scholarship” and celebrates the moments of discovery that educators evoke in their students. As an exemplar and beneficiary of the liberal arts curriculum within the American university, she has remarked on her own motivating principle: “If there is anything that I can bring to higher education, it is a constant reminder of the need to bring children from the margins to the center, constantly redefining the center so that our democracy remains strong.” A native of Texas and a 1967 graduate of Dillard University in New Orleans, Simmons received the Ph.D. in Romance languages and literatures from Harvard University in 1973. She has written on the works of David Diop and Aime Cesaire and is the author of a book on education in Haiti. In 1983, after serving as associate dean of the Graduate School at the University of Southern California, Simmons joined the Princeton administration. She remained at Princeton for seven years, leaving in 1990 for two years to serve as provost at Spelman College. Returning to Princeton in 1992 as vice provost, she remained at the university until June 30, 1995. As vice provost, she was deputy to the provost and executive secretary of the Priorities Committee, the university’s budget committee. In 1993, invited by the president to review the state of race relations on the Princeton campus, Simmons wrote a report which resulted in a number of initiatives that received widespread attention. In 1995, she became president of Smith College, the largest women’s college in the United States. As president of Smith, she launched a number of initiatives, including an engineering program, the first at a women’s college in the United States. Simmons serves on a number of boards, including the Carnegie Corporation, Pfizer Inc., Texas Instruments, and The Goldman Sachs Group. She is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Active in a wide range of educational, charitable and civic endeavors, she holds honorary degrees from numerous colleges and universities, including Amherst, Boston University, Dartmouth, Dillard, Harvard, Mount Holyoke College, New York University, Northeastern, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Southern California, and George Washington University. Simmons is the recipient of a number of prizes and fellowships, including the German DAAD and a Fulbright Fellowship to France. In 1997, she was awarded the Centennial Medal from Harvard University, in 1999 the Teachers College Medal for Distinguished Service from Columbia University, and in 2001 the President’s Award from the United Negro College Fund. She has been honored with the 2002 Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal and the 2002 “drum major for justice” education award from Southern Christian Leadership Conference/W.O.M.E.N. She has been selected as a 2002 Newsweek person to watch and as a Ms. woman of the year, and in 2001, Time named her America’s best college president. In September 2001, ABC News tapped her to serve as a respondent during its live telecast following President Bush’s address to Congress. In recent years, Simmons, an articulate spokesperson and writer, has written and delivered papers or presentations on a wide array of educational and public policy issues, including institutional governance, diversity, liberal arts, science education, and the role of women in society. Among numerous educational institutions and national forums, she has been a featured speaker at the White House, the World Economic Forum, the National Press Club, the Economic Club of San Francisco, the American Association of University Women, and the American Council on Education. In addition, she has delivered commencement orations at Harvard, the University of Southern California, and George Washington, Washington, and Dillard Universities. In two years at Brown, President Simmons has launched an ambitious initiative to enrich Brown’s academic core by enlarging the faculty by at least 100 new positions; establishing a need-blind financial aid process to ensure all worthy applicants access to the University regardless of their ability to pay; improving support for graduate students; and making substantial new investments in libraries, information technology and academic space. In addition, President Simmons has created a diversity initiative to ensure that diversity informs every dimension of the University. ###### News Service Home | Top of File | e-Subscribe | Brown Home Page | ||||