Former Ivy League President Simmons Leading by Example
HOUSTON – Ruth Simmons, Ph.D. was the youngest of 12 children in Grapeland, Texas and rose to become president of Brown University for 11 years.
How was that possible? She says even with all of the challenges of growing up in poverty and segregation, education became her way out.
“I understood that you could tell me that I couldn’t succeed, you could tell me I couldn’t do this or couldn’t do that, but you could never tell me what I couldn’t put into my brain because anything I put in there was mine to own completely,” she said on this week’s Houston Newsmakers with Khambrel Marshall.
Her amazing journey to the pinnacle of academia seemed complete when she retired back to Texas in 2012, but she came out of retirement in 2017 to become of president of Prairie View A&M University. It was the obvious way for her to give back.
“Prairie View is part of my story,” she said. “It takes young people like me and gives them an opportunity to find what their strengths are and to go on to make themselves into productive people.”
There is much more this Sunday with this amazing Black History maker in this Newsmakers EXTRA.
VIDEO: Houston Newsmakers EXTRA with Ruth Simmons
More Information:
- Ruth J. Simmons, President, Prairie View A&M University
- 936-261-2111
- Twitter: @PVAMU
Houston Newsmakers - Ruth Simmons part 1
Houston Newsmakers - Ruth Simmons part 2
Houston Newsmakers - Ruth Simmons part 3