President Ruth Simmons has been named to the Princeton Board of Trustees, Princeton announced Tuesday morning. She will begin her four-year term as a trustee July 1 and was among seven new members elected to the 40-person board.
Simmons served as Princeton's vice provost from 1992 to 1995, in addition to holding other administrative positions there in the previous decade. She also received an honorary degree from Princeton in 2006 and currently serves on Howard University's board of trustees. Simmons will join a Princeton board that includes many high-profile figures in their respective fields, including Hewlett-Packard top executive Meg Whitman, former ABC news anchor Charles Gibson and political columnist George Will.
Simmons will end her term as University president June 30 following an 11-year tenure marked by record fundraising, a switch to need-blind admission and greater focus on research. Her successor, Christina Paxson, shares Simmons' Princeton roots. Paxson will step down as dean of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs when she takes office as Brown's president July 1.
