Passion, Generosity, and the Academy: Meridians Interview with Ruth J. Simmons

meridians:

What made you want to help set up a journal like Meridians at Smith College?

ruth j. simmons:

I spent some time at Spelman College (1989–91) and while there I was very interested in the work of Sage, a publication for and about African-American women. I was also aware of how difficult it was to produce Sage: difficult in the sense of bringing together scholars on the editorial board; of trying to persuade people institutionally to support it; of trying to convince people that the editorial time spent on the journal was worthwhile; of trying to identify stakeholders in the journal. I remember longing for a home for Sage like other scholarly journals had, where you didn't have to worry about resources or about the legitimacy of the work being contributed. At the same time I also was acutely aware, from my days as an Associate Dean of the Faculty at Princeton, how important the issue of venue was, especially for scholarly work by people who were interested in issues of race, identity, and gender. As early as my Princeton days I filed away in my mind that it would be wonderful to create a legitimate venue, thereby also creating support for scholarly work on race, gender, and identity.

When Sage came to an end some years ago, while I was President at Smith, I felt very strongly that in the bibliography of scholarly journals, there ought to be a place for one that really focused on women of color. I thought Smith College could be the home for such a venture.

When we first started talking about Meridians in 1996 the response of people was "yes, but why would you have a journal that focuses on women of color? It's so specialized, there aren't many people who will be interested in that." And of course, when people say that, they're not thinking that women of color are the majority of women in the world.

So, both my experience in the tenure review process and my understanding of how difficult it was to find a home for publishing certain kinds of material meant that I knew how important it was to have the resources needed to develop a project such as Meridians.

And I think, frankly, down the road, I also anticipated that it would be wonderful if such a scholarly adventure would mature into a publishing enterprise for monographs on these subjects.

meridians:

It is clear you like to think outside the mainstream.

simmons:

When I was a student, I knew that my tastes, my concerns, and my interests were not mainstream and, as importantly, that they were also not inferior. As a result, I have always wanted to find a place in the academy where very good ideas could be supported even though they fell outside the mainstream. When I was at Princeton (1983–1989; 1991–1995), I looked for the people who couldn't get their ideas through, for those gems of whom the academy was distrustful. I tried to look beyond what I thought was the appearance of quality to the underlying merit of ideas. I remember when I left Princeton where I was Associate Dean of the Faculty, some faculty described my role as a kind of ombudsperson. I thought that was a very odd way to describe it, but I suppose it isn't, because I aimed to be an honest broker for faculty who were innovative and had cutting-edge ideas.

From my youngest age in the academy I had the sense that the academy is extraordinarily rule-bound. By this I mean that it's easy to fall into patterns of endorsing the same kinds of work, vision, and scholarship that have been conducted before. Being so tightly rule-bound does not sit well for me in a place—the university—where creativity and a sense of adventure should be forever present. For example, the issues tackled by Meridians are the issues that rule-bound academic thinking does not encourage.

I think that what I fight for...