Dr. Ruth Simmons will serve as the keynote speaker during the LBJ School’s 28th Annual Barbara Jordan National Forum. She will also receive the Barbara Jordan Public Service Award for her commitment to building community. Tuesday, Feb. 21 at 12:15pm.
Dr. Ruth Simmons is a Distinguished Presidential Fellow at Rice University and Adviser to the President of Harvard University on HBCU Initiatives. The youngest of 12 children of two sharecroppers, Simmons served as the first female president of Prairie View from 2017-23. She previously served as the first Black president of Smith College in Massachusetts and the president of Brown University, where she was the first Black woman to lead an Ivy League school.
Under her leadership, Prairie View was reclassified as an R-2 Research University, and Brown made significant strides in improving its standing as one of the world’s finest research universities.
Simmons’ book, “Up Home: One Girl’s Journey,” chronicles her life growing up in East Texas and Houston in the ‘40s and ‘50s, setting the stage for her distinguished career in academia.
