Search for the Provost Boston, MA Simmons University (Simmons), a private university in the heart of Boston offering a comprehensive undergraduate education and robust nationally recognized graduate programs, seeks an experienced and collaborative academic affairs leader to serve as its next Provost. Simmons offers a strong undergraduate education for women and coeducational graduate programs in health sciences, media and communications, liberal arts, library and information science, business, and social work. For more than a century, Simmons has been preparing women to lead lives that impact communities around the globe. Along the way it has embraced visionary thinking, innovation, and change, adapting to shifts in higher education while remaining true to its mission. In alignment with its core purpose, Simmons launched one of the first undergraduate women’s studies degree programs for women in the 1960s. Soon after, Simmons created the first MBA program designed specifically for women, with a focus on the organizational behavior of men and women. As new technologies and increased competition have caused significant disruptions in the higher education landscape, Simmons has developed and expanded high quality, nationally recognized online graduate degree and certificate programs in such areas as nursing, social work, and library and information science. Simmons has established a model of higher education that only today other colleges and universities are beginning to adopt: the combination of education for leadership in high-demand professional fields with the intellectual foundation of the liberal arts. The result is a Simmons graduate prepared not only to work, but to lead in professional, civic, and personal life — a vision of empowerment that Simmons calls preparation for life’s work. The Simmons story is one of growth, innovation, and a solid foundation — fueled by on-the-ground and online enrollments, and fortified investments in its campus and technology. The next Provost will join Simmons at an exciting moment of transition, challenge, and opportunity. Dr. Lynn Perry Wooten, Simmons’s ninth President and the University’s first African American President, joined the campus community in July 2020, energizing the institutional legacy of and commitment to empowering women-centered leaders and social justice champions. She joins Simmons as the COVID-19 pandemic is changing the landscape of higher education around the world and elevating the criticality of remote education, pedagogical innovation, and institutional nimbleness. Simmons has been a trail- blazer and an innovator over the last decade, devoting considerable institutional capital to building high- quality online academic offerings at the undergraduate and graduate levels, redesigning its institutional structure to meet the demands of 21st century education and research, and launching the “One Simmons” initiative to enhance its strategic financial and competitive positions for years to come. Simmons is positioned to build on its many accomplishments to meet the challenges of the pandemic and post-pandemic era. Boston | Philadelphia | San Francisco | Washington, DC Simmons University, Provost Page 2 of 11 The vision for Simmons’s next 100 years, first introduced in July 2017 and reaffirmed in its Strategy 2022, remains constant. The University will “become a beacon of leadership in the world of higher education; a resource to our nation and world; known for our expertise in fields which improve the human condition; sought out for the findings of our highly reputable research; and seen as the global expert in educating women for their own empowerment and leadership.” Working with administrators, faculty, and staff, the Provost will play a strategic leadership role in the execution of the University’s strategic plan. Reporting to the President, the Provost will serve as a senior leader of the University and a champion of Simmons's faculty, demonstrating a leadership style that is transparent and collaborative. This individual will possess the knowledge and experience to develop successful strategies that strengthen academic programs, their delivery, and their impact. The Provost has seven direct reports and oversees Academic Affairs with a total budget of $116 million (FY20). The successful candidate will be resourceful, imaginative, and forward-thinking, with a record of collaborative academic and administrative oversight. This is an extraordinary opportunity for an accomplished administrator to join a university focused on the development of leaders to assume meaningful roles in the world and on the principles of women's rights; social justice; and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Candidates should have a successful history of academic leadership; the proven ability to build and cultivate consensus among various stakeholder groups; the financial acumen necessary to navigate the higher education landscape; and a deep and demonstrated commitment to diversity and inclusion. An earned doctorate or other terminal degree is required, as is a record of scholarship and teaching commensurate with immediate appointment to the rank of full professor. Simmons University has retained Isaacson, Miller, a national executive search firm, to assist with this important search. Inquiries, nominations, and applications should be directed in confidence to the firm as indicated at the end of this document. About Simmons University In founding and endowing Simmons College in his 1899 will, Boston businessman John Simmons acted on a revolutionary idea: women should be educated like men and prepared to earn independent livelihoods for themselves and their families. Over its long history, Simmons has evolved and changed, but it has remained true to its commitment to empower women through a strong educational foundation. Combining intellectual achievement with purpose to make an impact in the world was and continues to be the broad goal of Simmons. In 1902, Simmons opened its doors to its first class of 146 undergraduate students. Simmons built upon their undergraduate programs to offer graduate education, initially only to women, but over time to include men. Its first graduate program, the Master of Science at the Boston School for Social Workers, was launched in 1912. The Master of Science at the School of Library Science was created in 1949, followed by the establishment over the next decades of master’s programs in the liberal arts, education, and business. Today, Simmons is anchored by its highly respected women’s undergraduate programs and enriched by its coeducational graduate offerings, offered both on the ground and online, in health sciences, liberal arts, business, communications, social work, public health, and library and information science. Simmons University, Provost Page 3 of 11 In keeping with its founding impulse, Simmons is dedicated to empowering women, developing leaders, and advancing equity and justice, both locally and globally. Simmons graduated its first African American student in 1914 and was one of the few private colleges not to impose admission quotas on Jewish students during the first half of the 1900s. In 1963, Simmons established the Dorothea Lynde Dix Scholars Program, one of the region’s first and most successful programs for non-traditional students uniquely designed to support adult women age 24 and older or second bachelor’s candidates. In 2014, Simmons announced a policy on the acceptance of transgender students, and its undergraduate program accepts applicants who are assigned female at birth as well as those who self-identify as women. Simmons has sponsored the Simmons Leadership Conference, the premier women’s leadership conference in the world, for the last four decades. The Conference attracts over 3,400 female middle- and senior-level managers from companies and organizations across the country and around the globe. In 2019, the University established the Institute for Leadership to advance its pivotal work in developing women leaders. Drawing on the expertise of Simmons’s faculty, alumni, and students, as well as external partners, the new Institute is charged with developing new educational programs for corporate executives, conducting research, and designing other activities focused on advancing women’s leadership, including hosting global conferences and conversations. While the Simmons campus is based in Boston, Simmons is a multi-faceted university offering degree programs at off-site locations including The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and The New England Center for Children. Undergraduate enrollment totals some 1,777 women, 11% of whom are learners through the Dix Scholars Program. The racial demographics of the undergraduate population at Simmons consists of 11% Asian, 7% Black or African American, 8% Latinx, 5% multi-racial, and 62% White students. The graduate student population numbers 4,858 men and women as of fall 2019, comprising 4% Asian, 9% Black or African American, 7% Latinx, and 56% White students. Current graduate offerings include five online master’s degrees, with students from all 50 states enrolled. Simmons is a member of the Colleges of the Fenway consortium, which also includes Emmanuel College, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and Massachusetts College of Art and Design. This collaboration provides cross-registration opportunities to the more than 12,000 undergraduate students that attend these five institutions. As of July 2020, Simmons has