Dr. Ruth Simmons
President of Brown University
Live Web cast November 7, 2001, 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT

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On October 14, 2001, Dr. Ruth Simmons was inaugurated as the 18th president of Brown University, becoming the first African American to head an Ivy League institution. Formerly the president of Smith College in Northampton, Mass., Simmons is also likely one of the first to reach these heights from a childhood that began in a sharecropper’s shack on a cotton farm.

Born the 12th child to a poor family in the small East Texas town of Grapeland in 1945, Simmons moved to Houston when she was of school age. She remembers going to kindergarten in a segregated public school system, where getting her own pencils, paper and books to read was "like winning the lottery." "I remember the first time I asked my mother if I could go to college," Simmons recalled in a speech after her election as Brown University president last November. "She said, hesitating, 'If you can get a scholarship, you can go.' Her mouth said, 'If you can get a scholarship,' but her eyes said that she didn’t think it would ever happen."

But it did, and Simmons went on to earn her bachelor’s degree summa cum laude at all-black Dillard University in New Orleans.

Simmons’ formative junior year of undergraduate studies was spent at Wellesley College. That period, she told the Brown Alumni Magazine Online, "was the first time I’d ever been in an environment where women were treated seriously... And as you know, African Americans of my generation were all reared to hold back. Because not holding back could cost one’s job, one’s life and do great harm to one’s family. Wellesley introduced me to the idea that I actually didn’t have to hold back in terms of the force of my intellect, the force of my opinions, the force of my aspirations." She later earned a master’s and doctorate in Romance languages and literature at Harvard University. She also studied in Mexico and France, and served as an interpreter for the U.S. State Department.

Simmons’ academic career began at the University of New Orleans. She moved on to California State University in Northridge, the University of Southern California and then Princeton University. She spent two years as provost at Spelman College in Atlanta before returning to Princeton as vice provost.

As the popular president of Smith from 1995 until 2001, Simmons upgraded the university’s academics and started a program in engineering, the first ever at a women’s college. She increased faculty morale by reducing the teaching load and oversaw several building construction and expansion projects. Throughout her career, Simmons has worked to open higher education - especially elite private institutions -- to disadvantaged minority students.

Related Links:
The Brown University Web site