Speeches and Articles

Inaugural Speech

The young and the old, the festive and the solemn, all blended together in an elegantly moving ceremony March 31 for the inauguration of Susan C. Scrimshaw as the 7th president of the century-old college. The inauguration, which marked the formal launching of Scrimshaw's presidency, was the culmination of three days of celebratory and academic events that showcased the past, present, and future vision of Simmons. View President Scrimshaw's speech online »

Good morning. Buenos dias. Members of the Faculties, Staff, Students, Members of the Board of Trustees, Delegates, Honored Guests. Thank you all for your warm greetings, and thank you all for sharing this celebration with our Simmons community. My special thanks to Treasurer Cahill and to Mayor Menino, for honoring us with their participation on this special occasion.

This speech is dedicated to my grandparents: Stewart Scrimshaw, who immigrated from rural England at age 16 with skills as a mason and fulfilled his dream of becoming a Professor of Economics at Marquette University and a labor mediator; Harriet Fernwood Scrimshaw, who used her MA in speech throughout a long career as a parliamentarian; Hubert Goodrich, the son of a Boston schoolteacher who was a Professor of Biology at Wesleyan University; and Clara Crosby Ware Goodrich, who while a graduate student in Biology at Columbia marched for women's and workers rights and chained herself to a fire hydrant on Broadway. They all were devoted to education.

Educate, Transform, Empower:
Simmons then, now and next

John Simmons began his career as a tailor in Boston in the 1800's making suits one at a time for wealthy men. He soon realized that most men could not afford the luxury of individually tailor-made suits, and he began to look for ways to expand his market. He settled on the idea of making suits in a few standard sizes -- he had cloth cut at a central location, then sent the pieces to women's homes to be hand-sewn. Because of John Simmons' entrepreneurial spirit in inventing the ready-made suit, the college that bears his name exists today.

Now, I maintain that John Simmons also had a bit of anthropologist in him. We anthropologists spend time as participant observers, learning about others by sharing their lives to the extent possible. You see, John Simmons visited the homes of the women who sewed for his business. He saw first-hand their poverty, and their struggle for a better life. Many of these women were the sole support of their families. He understood that the success of his business was due to these women, whose opportunities to improve their lives were severely limited without education. Because of John Simmons' anthropological spirit, Simmons College exists today.

John Simmons also experienced great loss. His four sons all died young, leaving no one to carry on the family name and business. Some people are embittered by such loss, but some choose to be philanthropic and to help others. John Simmons chose to be a giver, and bequeathed that spirit to his college. He remembered the women who had helped him make a fortune. He thought about how they could be helped to transform their lives. He decided to carry on the Simmons family name by endowing a college for women.

Because John Simmons chose to deal with adversity by giving, this college exists today.

In a very real sense, therefore, all of our Simmons students are the daughters and sons of John Simmons.

Three years before he died, he wrote: It is my will to found and endow an institution to be called the Simmons Female College, for the purpose of teaching "medicine, music, drawing, designing, telegraphy and other branches of art, science and industry best calculated to enable the scholars to acquire an independent livelihood.

Simmons College was created out of the desire to educate, empower and transform the lives of women.

About the time that John Simmons was thinking about his will, my great-grandfather's cousin, Susan Minns, was trying to figure out how to study with a famous botanist at Harvard. Harvard refused to admit a woman, and insisted she apply to Radcliffe. Instead, she enrolled at M.I.T. in 1878. She went on to become one of the founders of the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratories. She believed passionately in women's education, and sent several of her cousin's daughters to college. One of those daughters was my great-aunt Harriot Ware, who entered Simmons in the fall of 1903 and graduated with a major in home economics in the second graduating class in 1907. That was almost exactly one hundred years ago.

An agent of change, John Simmons not only transformed the clothing industry, he created an entirely new kind of college. The colleges that had been established in America in the centuries since European colonization were based on the traditional classical curriculum of literature, philosophy, history and the arts. Most of the women's colleges that were being formed in the late 1800's and early 1900's continued in this tradition. Simmons defied that tradition.

I am told that in the early days "Mr. Simmons' College" was referred to as "the Great Experiment." The "experiment" was the creation of an institution which would not only educate in the classical scholarly subjects, but would also enable women to practice a profession and earn a living.

This "great experiment" had two radical components:

  1. That all women, not only women from wealthy and middle class families, should have access to education.
  2. That education for women should consist of a mix of traditional scholarship then considered essential for all educated people and a profession or skill which would enable a woman to earn an independent livelihood.

As founding President Henry Lefavour said in 1920:

The founding of this college challenged the old educational order... This college emphasized the direct relation of higher education to a definite field of service.

This combination of classic liberal arts education and preparation for the professions evolved into the Simmons of today

  • a university containing an undergraduate women's college, and graduate schools open to both men and women, to prepare them for careers in Social Work, Health Sciences, Library and Information Science, Management, Education and Liberal Arts and Sciences.
  • a university that prepares students for leadership in the professions, financial well-being, generous citizenship and a commitment to service to build a vibrant, prosperous, just, caring and enduring society.

Even John Simmons could not have foreseen that his college would transform from a "Female College" to the university it is today. The key factor is that John Simmons was not afraid to propose a change to the traditional colleges of his era. And the generations of trustees, faculty, staff and students at Simmons have followed his lead and consistently taken bold steps. They have embraced change, while maintaining the core values that make Simmons unique.

Not long ago I was asked: "If John Simmons were alive now, what would be the great experiment? What is the great idea for education today equivalent to the founding principles of Simmons College?"

The key to answering that question lies in the history of the college as a change agent and as a place of opportunity for many who otherwise would not have had access to education.

Our future lies in our past. The roots of our past must continue to feed the fruit of our future.

In the first half of the last century, when many colleges had Jewish quotas, Simmons did not.

The first Black woman to attend Simmons was Lydia Brown of New Bedford, Massachusetts, who graduated as a member of the Class of 1914. We believe our first Latina was Estelle DeCosta, Class of 1911, from Roxbury, Massachusetts. Our first international student was Yoshi Kawashima from Tosa, Japan who attended Simmons in 1906-7 in a one-year Special Program in the School of Household Economics. Princess Sangwan Talapat Sonkla, mother of the current King of Thailand, studied at Simmons in the 1920s.

Simmons has a history of seeking out and admitting all qualified students. Often, these have been students who are the first generation in their families to obtain a college degree.

Sometimes these have been students who have pushed Simmons to needed change. Shortly after coming here, I was told of a set of demands submitted to then-President Park by a group of Black students on April 25, 1969. The demands were a comprehensive list of actions Park was asked to take in order to admit and retain more Black students, and in order to create a more welcoming environment at Simmons for Black students, faculty and staff. President Park agreed. I asked if we had a list of the students who presented the petition, and was delighted to discover that some of them are currently members of our Board of Trustees, and some are present today.

These roots of our past must continue to feed the fruit of our future.

Simmons is rooted in the tradition of addressing inequities in educational opportunities, and in our communities, from Boston to the nation to the world. This year, students and faculty petitioned the Simmons Board of Trustees to commit to a responsible investment policy opposing the genocide in Darfur. The Board agreed, and adopted such a policy.

The roots of our past must continue to feed the tradition of our future.

In 2005-2006, our Scott/Ross Center for Community Service engaged 1,200 undergraduate and graduate students in more than 40 local and regional programs and more than 34,000 hours of community service. We are partnering with schools in Boston, with villages in Nicaragua, with librarians in Vietnam and Iraq, and educating women entrepreneurs from India. We are providing scholarships to young women from countries where it has been traditionally difficult for women to obtain an education, such as Afghanistan, the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and the Sudan. We are educating and empowering women to transform their lives and those of others.

Simmons has a great future as a champion of the power of women's education, women's self-reliance and women's leadership. Simmons has a great future as a champion of women's basic rights of access to education, to health, to political voice, to economic opportunity and to freedom from violence and conflict, to freedom from the physical genocide occurring in regions like Darfur and from social damage occurring in our own inner cities in this country.

I asked the Boston Children's Chorus to sing Ani Ma'amin in recognition of this tradition and future. The steadfast belief, expressed in this song, that good will prevail, is the very essence of the Simmons spirit of leadership, self-reliance and activism.

So what is the answer to the question, "what would John Simmons do today?"

The original mission, to "enable the scholars to acquire an independent livelihood" was an inclusive mission, and created a college with a tradition of access for all, a tradition of self-reliance and a tradition of service. It created a college that combines the liberal arts and sciences with preparation for professional careers.

That mission remains unchanged. John Simmons had it right, and his vision is still right for Simmons College. I believe he would be proud of Simmons today.

Simmons was founded as a College for women. Our undergraduate college must continue to be a women's college preparing women educated and empowered as leaders, as scholars and as strong contributors to their communities and countries.

I pledge to maintain our undergraduate college as a women's college.

John Simmons went to the homes of the women who sewed. We must follow his example. We are becoming a Global Simmons, so the "homes" we visit may be in maquiladoras in Mexico, in factories in New Bedford, in libraries in Iraq, in rural health clinics in Afghanistan, in the public schools of Boston, in recovering New Orleans neighborhoods, in low income urban areas and in villages around the world.

I pledge to continue to lead us to global education and action.

Simmons has always been engaged in the world, working for the rights, education, economic well-being and health of women, children and men. I pledge to continue and enhance that engagement.

Since 1914 Simmons has been committed to diversity. I pledge to work with our entire community to honor that commitment. I pledge to increase and enhance our diversity of students, faculty and staff, and to enhance the environment necessary to nurture that diversity.

Simmons has always been interdisciplinary, combining traditional scholarship with practical skills. I pledge to guide us in further developing the extraordinary opportunities provided by our mix of professional schools and liberal arts education.

Simmons is traditionally committed to academic excellence. I pledge to continue that tradition. I pledge to work with our faculty to insure that our academic programs meet the most rigorous standards for all students. I pledge that the Simmons degree will always win respect and admiration.

We are educating and empowering women and now, also graduate men, who are transforming organizations, communities, and sometimes, nations. They become doctors and scientists and lawyers, politicians and journalists. They become entrepreneurs and corporate leaders. They become the nurses, teachers, librarians, social workers, nutritionists and physical therapists who give back to their communities. They are rooted in a tradition of liberal arts education, but they are more. They are more.

The song "We Are?" by Ysaye Barnwell, which we just heard, is an expression of our past and of our future, of the roots and fruit on the Simmons tree as described by my daughter in her images for the medallion.

For each child that's born
a morning star rises
and sings to the universe
who we are.

We are our grandmothers' prayers.
We are our grandfathers' dreamings.
We are the breath of our ancestors.

We are....

Lovers of life and
the builders of nations.
We are
Seekers of truth
Keepers of faith
Makers of peace and
the wisdom of ages.

This is who we have been at Simmons. This is who we are at Simmons. This is who we will be at Simmons.

Thank you.

References

Kathleen Dunn, Professor Emeritus of Education at Simmons, personal communication 2007.

Lefavour, Henry Ph.D., "Founder's Day Speech", given in June, 1920, Simmons College, Boston, MA, pg., 7

Mark, Kenneth L. Delayed by Fire: Being the Early History of Simmons College, 1945, Rumford Press, Concord N.H.