Dr. Ruth J. Simmons, President of Brown University
In addition to her unprecedented personal achievements that have broken racial and gender barriers, Dr. Ruth J. Simmons is being honored by ERASE Racism for her outstanding commitment to providing students of color and low-income students with the opportunity to achieve academic excellence. Honoring Dr. Simmons during ERASE Racism's 10th Anniversary year is especially meaningful given that Dr. Simmons is also celebrating her 10th year as the President of Brown University and the unprecedented achievement of becoming the first African American to head an Ivy League Institution.
Throughout the past decade Dr. Simmons has used Brown's resources to improve the quality of education in Rhode Island's k-12 public schools, which includes a $10 million endowment, an urban education fellowship that promises free four-year tuition to Brown graduates who serve Providence's public schools, and a diversity development training program for the city's public school teachers.
 |
| Dr. Simmons with student activists advocating for the Dream Act |
To support low-income students at Brown, Dr. Simmons led the efforts to create the Sidney Frank Endowed Scholarship Fund-a $100 million gift for financial aid that eliminates loans for Brown's neediest students and replaces it with scholarship grants. Dr. Simmons has also increased academic opportunities for students of color at other universities by providing technical support thro
ugh Brown's Historically Black Colleges and Universities Initiative.
 |
| Hilary Clinton and Ruth Simmons |
Prior to her presidential appointment at Brown University, Dr. Simmons became the first African American woman to head a major college or university when she was selected as president of Smith College in 1995. At Smith she launched
a number of strategic initiatives to strengthen the college's academic programs and inaugurated the first engineering program at a U.S. women's college.
As an academic leader, Dr. Simmons
believes in the power of education to transform lives. While at Princeton University she used her position as the Director of Studies to lead the University's 1980's Race and Relations Report and was responsible for offering professorships to such scholars as Cornel West, Henry Louis Gates, and Toni Morrison.
 |
| Ruth Simmons, Chinua Achebe, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez |
In recent years she has written and delivered papers and presentations on a wide array of educational and public policy issues, including institutional governance, foreign language study, diversity, liberal arts, science education, leadership, and women in higher education.
Dr. Simmons is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the American Philosophical Society and the Council on Foreign Relations. She has been a featured speaker at the White House, the World Economic Forum, the National Press Club, the Association of American Universities, and the American Council on Education. She was recently appointed by President Obama as a member of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships.
