Ruth Simmons
Ruth Simmons (born Ruth Jean Stubblefield; July 3, 1945) was the 18th president of Brown University, the first black president of an Ivy League institution. Simmons was elected Brown's first female president in November 2000. Simmons assumed office in fall of 2001.
Simmons holds appointments as a professor in the Departments of Comparative Literature and Africana Studies. In 2002, Newsweek selected her as a Ms. Woman of the Year, while in 2001, Time named her as America's best college president. According to a March 2009 poll by The Brown Daily Herald, Simmons had more than an 80% approval rating among Brown undergraduates.
On September 15, 2011, President Simmons announced that she planned to step down from the Brown presidency at the end of the academic year, June 30, 2012. After a short leave, she plans to continue at Brown as Professor of Comparative Literature and Africana Studies.
Early life and education
Simmons was born in Grapeland, Texas, the last of 12 children of Fanny (née Campbell) and Isaac Stubblefield. Her father was a sharecropper, until the family moved to Houston during her school years. Her paternal grandfather descends partly from Benza and Kota people slaves from Gabon. She earned her bachelor's degree, on scholarship, from Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1967. She went on to earn her master's and doctorate in Romance literature from Harvard University in 1970 and 1973, respectively.
