Now in Her 70s, First Black Ivy-League President Finds a Third Act

Courtesy of Prairie View A&M U.

At age 72, Ruth J. Simmons is ready for her next act.

The former president of Brown University, and first black president of an Ivy League institution, has been named the sole finalist for the permanent presidency of Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college near Houston.

Ms. Simmons, who was also the first black president of Smith College, has been known as a trailblazer. The Texas native has lived just outside of Houston since stepping down as president of Brown, in 2012. She graduated from Dillard University, a private, liberal-arts black college in New Orleans, before earning a doctorate at Harvard University.

Ms. Simmons made stops at the University of Southern California and at Princeton University, where she is largely credited with raising the profile of the black-studies program. She then served as an administrator at Spelman College.

When she was appointed president of Smith, in 1995, the elite women’s institution had just 86 black students in its enrollment of more than 2,000. “She’s the Jackie Robinson of college presidents,” Henry Louis Gates, a prominent black scholar and professor at Harvard, said at the time. Ms. Simmons, however, pushed back at the pioneer label in an interview with The New York Times.

And, she added, “my involvement in both white and black institutions provides a kind of example of how we must move through these artificial barriers that separate higher education.” But she kept breaking barriers. In 2000, Brown selected her as its 18th president.

This past June the Texas A&M System announced that Ms. Simmons would serve as interim president of Prairie View A&M. She admitted that she had been taken aback when first approached about the position. And she had turned down offers to lead other institutions since leaving Brown. But this was different.

Black colleges have often been criticized as hosting a broken leadership pipeline. So the announcement that a seasoned college leader like Ms. Simmons would take the reins of the university was seen as a coup.

Prairie View A&M appealed to Ms. Simmons because of its history and mission. It didn’t hurt that her brother had gone there. “I was from a very poor family with 12 children, at a time when colleges were just desegregating,” she said in a written statement. “I know how important historically black colleges and universities are for kids like I was.”

John Sharp, chancellor of the Texas A&M system, extolled the initial hiring of Ms. Simmons, whom he called “an important figure on the national stage for decades.”

“She has the credentials to be the president of any university in America,” he said at the time.

But she said then that she did not plan to make it a permanent position.

“I told the chancellor when he invited me to serve in this role that he would not likely be happy with me in this job,” she said during a speech in July. “I am here for one purpose and one purpose only: to ensure that in this period the university remains strong and that I deliver to you an environment that will allow you to attract the next great leader for Prairie View.”

But as it turned out, Ms. Simmons saw herself as that “next great leader,” and she agreed to become the permanent president.

“I knew Dr. Simmons was the right fit to lead Prairie View when we asked her to serve as interim president,” Mr. Sharp said in a news release on Thursday. “I am so excited by the prospect of President Simmons’ serving our campus for the long term.”

Adam Harris is a breaking-news reporter. Follow him on Twitter @AdamHSays or email him at adam.harris@chronicle.com.