Brown U. Names Ivy League's First Black President

Nov. 9 -- Brown University has chosen as its nextleader Smith College President Ruth Simmons, who will become thefirst black to head an Ivy League school.

Simmons, a sharecropper’s daughter who went on to earn a Ph.D. in Romance languages, became the first black woman to lead Smith College, an elite 2,500-student women’s college in Northhampton, Mass.

Brown has been seeking a president since February, when GordonGee announced he was resigning to take the top post at VanderbiltUniversity in Tennessee.

The Daughter of Sharecropper

Simmons was the youngest of 12 children of a Texas sharecropperfather and a mother who worked as a domestic. Simmons earned ascholarship to Dillard University in New Orleans and graduated withhighest honors in 1967.

She earned a Ph.D. in Romance languages from Harvard University,and worked several years at Princeton University as a teacher andadministrator.

At a news conference today, she wept as she imagined what herparents would have thought of her appointment, and recalled thefirst time she told her mother she wanted to go to college.

“She said, ‘Possibly if you can get a scholarship you cango,’” Simmons said. “Her mouth said, ‘If you can get ascholarship,’ but her eyes said she didn’t think it would everhappen, so it’s been very important for me to imagine my motherwould have been very happy.”

Simmons took over as the head of Smith College in 1995. Duringher tenure, the school’s endowment nearly doubled to $900 million.She also established an engineering program, the first at a women’sschool.

Brown, which has 7,000 students, has an endowment of $1.5billion, among the smallest of the Ivy League schools. Simmons, whowas educated in segregated schools, said increasing financial aidwas a top priority.

“A student with ability, irrespective of economic means, justhas to be able to come to Brown. That’s a moral imperative,” shesaid.