Ruth Simmons

In November 2000, Dr. Ruth J. Simmons became the 18th President of Brown University; she is the first African American to preside over an Ivy League school. The twelfth child of a sharecropper turned aircraft worker, she grew up in Houston in a home without books, or even a desk. She admits she was terrified to leave home for the first time to attend Dillard University in New Orleans, but Simmons overcame her fears, excelled in college, and went on to earn a Doctorate in Romance Languages and Literature from Harvard University. While her teaching and research interests centered primarily on the literature of French-speaking Africa and the Caribbean, she became increasingly sought after for university administrative posts. She was serving as Vice Provost of Princeton University in 1995, when she was tapped to head Smith College, one of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, traditionally a redoubt of upper-class young women from the Northeast. As President of Smith, Simmons carried on a "personal crusade" to bring disadvantaged students to the Smith campus and others like it. This podcast was recorded at the Academy of Achievement's 2000 gathering in Scottsdale, Arizona while Ruth Simmons was still President of Smith College, a few months before she was elected to lead Brown University. In her address to the Academy, Simmons relates how she fell in love with books and ideas as a child. She encourages the Academy's student delegates to pursue lifelong learning, while warning them of the dangers of arrogance. She reminds them that the wisest people they ever meet may not be the most educated. Her presidency at Brown ended on a high note. She enjoyed an 80 percent approval rating when she announced the she would resign as president, effective June 2012. Ruth Simmons remains at Brown University as a professor of comparative literature and African studies.