Two Dillard University alumni, including the first black president of an Ivy League university, have been named to the school’s Board of Trustees. They are Ruth Simmons, a 1967 Dillard graduate, and Ronald V. Burns Sr., a member of the Class of 1973.

Simmons, who went on to earn master’s and doctoral degrees at Harvard University, is president of Brown University, a position she has held since 2001. She plans to retire at the end of this academic year.

Before being named Brown’s president, Simmons had been the first African-American president of Smith College, a member of an elite group of women’s schools in the Northeast known as the Seven Sisters. She also has held administrative positions at the University of New Orleans, California State University in Northridge and Princeton University.

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