Ruth Simmons - Brown University Presidency

Brown University Presidency

Ruth Simmons became president of Brown in 2001. At Brown, she completed an ambitious $1.4 billion initiative - the largest in Brown's history - known as Boldly Brown: The Campaign for Academic Enrichment in order to enhance Brown’s academic programs. In 2005, President Simmons earned enough confidence in her leadership of Brown to motivate philanthropist and former Brown student Sidney E. Frank to make the largest aggregate monetary contribution to Brown in its entire history in the amount of $120 million. The Frank gift was principally devoted to scholarship assistance to Brown students and to Brown's programs in the sciences. By early 2007, President Simmons had earned the confidence of philanthropist Warren Alpert who made a similarly generous contribution to strengthen the programs of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in the amount of $100 million, matching the core portion of the Sidney Frank gift to Brown. As reported in a May 22, 2009 press release, Brown chancellor Thomas J. Tisch announced early accomplishment of the $1.4 billion fundraising campaign and the continued pursuit of specific subsidiary goals in support of endowments for student scholarships, the Brown faculty and internationalization programs through the originally planned campaign completion date of December 31, 2010.

In a 2006 orientation meeting with parents, Simmons denied interest in the presidency of Harvard University, which at the time was headed by an interim president, Derek Bok. Nevertheless, a 2007 New York Times article, featuring a photograph of Simmons, reported that the Harvard Corporation, responsible for selecting the university's replacement for former president Lawrence Summers, had been given a list of "potential candidates" that included her name.

In August 2007, President Simmons was invited to deliver the 60th Annual Reading of the historic 1790 George Washington Letter to Touro Synagogue at the Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island in response to Moses Seixas on the subject of religious pluralism.

In September 2011, Simmons announced that she would step down from her position as Brown President at the end of the 2011-12 academic year, remaining at Brown as a professor of comparative literature and Africana studies.