"The State of Conscience in University Life Today"

Ruth J. Simmons, Professor of French Comparative Literature and of Africana Studies, Brown University - James E. McLeod Memorial Lecture on Higher Education

NOW AVAILABLE: EVENT PHOTOS

Reception immediately following in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge

Ruth J. Simmons was President of Brown University from 2001-2012. Under her leadership, Brown made significant strides in improving its standing as one of the world’s finest research universities.

A professor of French before entering university administration, President Simmons currently holds an appointment as Professor of Comparative Literature and of Africana Studies at Brown. After completing her Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard, she served in various faculty and administrative roles at the University of Southern California, Princeton University, and Spelman College before becoming president of Smith College, the largest women’s college in the United States. At Smith, she launched a number of important academic initiatives, including an engineering program, the first at an American women’s college. 

Simmons is the recipient of many honors, including a Fulbright Fellowship to France, the 2001 President’s Award from the United Negro College Fund, the 2002 Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, the 2004 Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal, the Foreign Policy Association Medal, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and the Centennial Medal from Harvard University. She has been a featured speaker in many public venues, including the White House, the World Economic Forum, the Economic Club of Washington, D. C., the Brookings Institution, the National Press Club, the American Council on Education and the Clinton Global Initiative. An advocate for the University’s leadership on major public policy and higher education issues, she has worked on an array of educational and public policy issues, including excellence in institutional governance, the place of diversity in university life, the importance of liberal arts, the urgency of internationalization, and broader access to education. Simmons is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the board of Texas Instruments as well as on a number of non-profit boards. She has received numerous honorary degrees, and last year, she received the Brown faculty’s highest honor, the Susan Colver Rosenberger Medal of Honor.

The Center for the Humanities, the College of Arts & Sciences, Office of the Provost and The Assembly Series are co-sponsors for this event. The range of speakers for the James E. McLeod Memorial Lecture on Higher Education series is broad: academics and journalists who have written about the liberal arts and higher education, both positively and critically, as well as noted people who talk about how the liberal arts affected their lives and their career choices.

If you have any questions, please call the Center for the Humanities at 314-935-5576