President Ruth Simmons will deliver this year's commencement address at Union College, a small liberal arts school in upstate New York.
Simmons, who will speak on June 15, will also receive an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Union, according to a Feb. 6 press release from the college.
"She's widely recognized as a leader in higher education," said Phillip Wajda, director of media and public relations at Union. "She's someone whom many people admire."
Wajda said Union invited Simmons on Dec. 6, and she accepted the invitation on Jan. 11.
"We're extremely fortunate that she's chosen to accept our invitation," he said, "and we're very excited to hear her message to the campus community."
Marisa Quinn, assistant to the president, said Simmons decided to accept the college's invitation because several Union alumni she knew "have spoken very highly of it." Simmons has not decided on a topic for the speech yet, she said.
Wajda said Union also selected Simmons for her role in introducing engineering to the curriculum at Smith College, where Simmons was president from 1995 to 2001. He said that in 1845, Union became the first liberal arts college to incorporate engineering into its curriculum.
Wajda said it is a tradition "at any college commencement" to award the speaker with an honorary degree.
Simmons, who graduated from Dillard University in 1967 and received her Ph.D. from Harvard in 1973, holds honorary degrees from more than 25 colleges, including Amherst College, Spelman College, Princeton and Dartmouth.
Since becoming the Ivy League's first black president in 2001, Simmons has spoken at the commencement of another college or University every year. In 2007, she was the commencement speaker at Spelman College, a historically black women's college in Atlanta, Ga. She has also spoken at New York University, the University of Southern California and Washington University in St. Louis, among others.