Simmons to join Rice in advisory role
She’s slated to begin as fellow at month’s end after early departure as PVAMU’s president
Ruth J. Simmons will join Rice University in an advisory role after she steps down as president of Prairie View A&M University at the end of the month.
The announcement follows an apparent fallout between Simmons and the Texas A&M University System, with the longtime higher education administrator revealing Friday that she would leave the HBCU months earlier than planned because of a dispute over her decision-making power.
Simmons will begin her new position as a President’s Distinguished Fellow on April 1, Rice officials said Tuesday.
“Ruth brings with her a myriad of insights from her career as a faculty member, university president and national leader in higher education,” Rice President Reginald DesRoches said. “Often cited as one of the most consequential higher education leaders of this generation, and one of the most important and compelling local and national leaders, Ruth has served numerous universities, corporations and nonprofit organizations in an advisory capacity. I am grateful and excited that she will continue her broad and impactful outreach from her position at Rice.”
Simmons was scheduled to resign as Prairie View’s president June 1 but decided to exit sooner after being informed she would end her term with “limited presidential authority,” she said in a letter to the university community.
Texas A&M System Chancellor John Sharp elaborated that Simmons’ decision stemmed from a policy preventing her from filling high-level job vacancies at Prairie View — a decadeslong standard that applies to all departing presidents across the
A&M System and ensures that new presidents form their own leadership teams.
Simmons already had connections at Rice, where she is a trustee emerita and served on the board from 2014 to 2018. DesRoches, the university’s president, has referred to her as one of his mentors, and Simmons delivered the keynote address at his inauguration last year.
As a fellow at Rice, Simmons will work with various programs across campus, advise the president, and collaborate with faculty and staff to build out leadership programs for students, university officials said.
She will also provide input on the development of Rice’s Center for African and African American Studies. Simmons is former director of African American studies at Princeton University, past chair of the Harvard University Visiting Committee for African-American Studies and lead of the Slavery and Justice Initiative at Brown in 2003.
Simmons has a long history at higher education institutions across the country, making history as the first Black female president of an Ivy League university when she became Brown’s president in 2001. She served there until 2012 and left retirement to become Prairie View A&M’s president in 2017.
Before announcing her early departure, Simmons had planned to remain at Prairie View as a professor with no departmental home, advising the new president and continuing to fundraise for the university. In her announcement last week, she said she now plans to continue advocating for “high standards and just decisions” at Prairie View and other HBCUs.
The Texas A&M University announced Simmons’ replacement at the historically Black university last year. System officials said they will appoint an interim president to serve until Tomikia LeGrande, vice president for strategy, enrollment management and student success at Virginia Commonwealth University, assumes the role as planned.