Dr. Ruth Simmons named ninth president of prestigious Smith College

Jet, Jan 9, 1995

Dr. Ruth Simmons, vice provost at Princeton University, recently w a s named the ninth president of prestigious Smith College in Northampton, MA.

When Simmons begins her term at the Northeastern women's institution on July 1, 1995, she will become the first Black president of the top-ranked college.

Smith College, one of the nation's top liberal arts schools, has an undergraduate enrollment of 2,700 students. Of those students, 20 percent are women of color, 3 percent or 86 of the students are Black.

Simmons, 49, has an undergraduate degree from Dillard University in New Orleans. She also studied a year in France after receiving a Fulbright Grant. In addition, Simmons has both an M.A. and Ph.D degree in romance languages from Harvard University.

During her career at Princeton, Simmons was asked to serve as acting director of the school's Afro-American Studies Program. She is recognized for revitalizing the program and attracting faculty including author Cornel West and novelist Toni Morrison.

"Ruth Simmons is perhaps the most visionary leader in higher education," said West, a former faculty member at Princeton, who now is on the faculty at Harvard.

"She is, in many ways, responsible for creating the critical mass of Black scholars at Princeton, and for allowing that program to soar even higher than we expected we would."