I feel like Mr. Vaughn and others who 
are camped outside are not disrupting 
my ability to come and go from the 
house. I have guests at the house where 
I do the University’s business quite 
often — that’s why I live on campus. 
That hasn’t been disrupted. So I want to 
really shout them out for the respectful 
way that they’re persistently advocating 
their cause, and that’s the way change 
happens. I understand the passion, and 
I respect the high level of character with 
which they’re propagating their protest.
TMD: The protesters have said you 
enter and leave your house through 
the side door, and have not directly 

acknowledged their presence in person. 
Why do you always leave out of the 
side entrance of your house? Even if 
you won’t have a conversation with the 
survivor protesters, could you physically 
acknowledge their presence?
MS: Well, obviously I just did, 
because I told you the nature of their 
character and actually complimented 
them, but the way I’ve chosen to 
listen to members of the survivors’ 
community doesn’t include stopping 
by the front of the house and listening 
to a group of folks in tents. But rest 
assured that myself and the regents 
are listening to not just Mr. Vaughn 
and the others who are out there, but 
the broader community. I get emails 
all the time, and we’ll continue to listen 
throughout the process.

TMD: In terms of physically 
avoiding the protesters, this protest has 
garnered significant regional and even 
national media attention. How do you 
think that your physical avoidance of the 
protesters reflects on the University?
MS: I don’t have more to say. I 
explained the rationale for how I’m 
engaging and how I’m learning about 
the experiences of not just Mr. Vaughn, 
but the many others who have been 
impacted by Dr. Anderson, and then all 
the other episodes of misconduct that 
have occurred through the years at the 
University. 
TMD: You said the mediation is 
confidential. At this time, I’m curious 
to know if there’s a specific protocol in 
place that prohibits you from speaking 
to survivors?

MS: I’m not an attorney, but the 
judge-ordered behaviors have to do with 
the mediation and aspects of relevance 
to the mediation.
TMD: Is the 4.5% disbursement rate 
of the endowment up for reconsideration 
given the recent 40% growth of the 
endowment? 
MS: The endowment is actually what 
makes us different from most large public 
universities. This year we’re taking $404 
million out of the endowment. Compare 
that to the $330 million we got from the 
state of Michigan — we’re getting more 
out of the endowment. That amount 
grows every year, and it’ll grow even 
faster because of this spectacular year the 
endowment had. 

What we worry about in good 

Ruth Simmons, president of Prairie View 
A&M University, a historically Black universi-
ty in Houston, Texas, will be the main speaker 
at the Winter 2021 Commencement on Dec. 19. 
Simmons is also recommended for an honor-
ary Doctor of Laws degree, if approved by the 
Board of Regents. 
Simmons became the first African-Amer-
ican president of an Ivy League institution 
when she took the role as the 18th president of 
Brown University in 2001. She is also an advo-
cate for social justice and equal opportunity in 
education. Simmons graduated summa cum 
laude from Dillard University in 1967 and was 
a member of the Fulbright Scholars Program. 
Simmons also earned a Master of Arts degree 
in 1970 and a Ph.D. in 1973, both from Harvard 
University.
When Simmons left Brown in 2012, she 
publicly announced that she was retiring from 
leading colleges. Yet five years later, she took 
on the job of president of Prairie View A&M in 
an interim president role, which later became 
permanent. Simmons told the Texas Tribune 
in 2017 that students’ “determination, their 
commitment to try to better themselves” 
convinced her to keep the job past the interim 
period.
Simmons worked in numerous roles at the 
University of Southern California and Spel-
man College from 1979-1991. She was also 
vice provost at Princeton University Simmons 
from 1992-1995. Simmons served as the presi-
dent of Smith College from 1995 to 2000 and 
launched the firSst engineering program at an 

American women’s college.
During her tenure at Brown, which lasted 
from 2001 to 2012, Simmons created a pro-
gram to expand faculty and increase financial 
support and resources for students. She also 
worked on initiatives to increase education 
around the school’s historic relationship to 
slavery, an issue that is personal to Simmons, 
who is the great-granddaughter of slaves. 
Brown was the first school in the country to 
make public its role in perpetuating and prof-
iting off slavery, with a comprehensive report 
published in 2006.
Simmons is a fellow of the American 
Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of 
the American Philosophical Society and the 
Council on Foreign Relations and serves on 
the boards of the Houston Museum of Fine 
Arts, the Smithsonian National Museum of 
African American History and Culture and 
The Holdsworth Center. She is also the recipi-
ent of the United Negro College Fund Presi-
dent’s Award, the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill 
Medal, the Foreign Policy Association Medal, 
the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and Harvard 
University’s Centennial Medal.
E Hill De Loney, a leader in community-
based research and advocate for public health 
in Black communities, Cleve Moler, founder 
of the mathematical software company 
MathWorks and Kathy Anne Perkins, the-
ater scholar and lighting designer, were also 
recommended for honorary degrees and will 
be awarded at the commencement if granted 
approval from the Board.
The Board will vote to approve these 
degrees on Dec. 9.
Daily Staffer Reporter Kate Weiland can be 
reached at kmwblue@umich.edu

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
2 — Wednesday, November 17, 2021 

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NEWS BRIEFS

HBCU president Ruth 
Simmons named Winter 2021 
Commencement speaker

 Former Brown University president was first 
Black person to lead an Ivy League institution

KATE WEILAND 
Daily Staff Reporter

Associate Editor: Julia Maloney

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
Every Wednesday and Saturday morning, 120 vendors travel from different parts of Michigan and Ohio to set up their stands and prepare for another busy day at the Ann Arbor 
Farmers Market. Picture captured Nov. 6 at the market.

PHOTO

Senior Layout Editor: Sophie Grand

Six-year-old Julian Gagnon was rewarded for his discovery 
and donation of a rare mastodon tooth to the University of Mich-
igan’s Museum of Paleontology, according to a Michigan Radio 
article published in October.
Gagnon, who discovered the tooth while taking a hike with 
his family in Rochester Hills, Mich., received a behind-the-
scenes look at the University’s Ann Arbor Research Museums 
Center and the paleontologists’ labs as a thank you for his dona-
tion.
Gagnon first noticed the fossil when he walked near a creek 
at Dinosaur Hill Nature Preserve. Michigan Radio reported that 
Gagnon was initially interested in a bright spot in the water, and 
did not know what he had found.
“I walked over there and I saw this cool rock, and I kind of 
picked it up and looked at it,” Gagnon told Michigan Radio. “I 
didn’t know if it was a rock or if it was a dinosaur tooth.”
His family urged him to take it home, where they researched 
Michigan’s native prehistoric creatures and decided to con-
tact the paleontologists at the University. Dr. Adam Rountrey, a 
Research Museum collection manager and 3D specialist at the 
Museum of Paleontology, told The Daily that after identifying 
the mastodon tooth from Gagnon’s email, the University sent a 
team of paleontologists to Dinosaur Hill to search for additional 
material with Gagnon and his family. 
Rountrey said he was impressed that Gagnon found the tooth 
under such difficult conditions.
“The water in the stream there, Paint Creek, I believe it’s 
called, it was fairly deep and running pretty quickly,” Rountrey 
said. “So it was hard to see the bottom when we were sort of 
searching around the area where he had found the tooth. I think 
he was really lucky to have found it under the water like that.”
Rountrey said they did not find any further signs of fossils 
during their search and that the Mastodon tooth is the first ver-
tebrate fossil the museum has received from Dinosaur Hill. He 
said after Gagnon agreed to donate the tooth to the museum, 
they invited him to take a behind the scenes tour of the research 
museum center to see where the fossil collections are stored.
“So we gave him a tour here, he donated the tooth, and we’ve 
agreed to produce a 3D model of it,” Rountrey said. “And (we also 
produced) a couple of 3D prints to get back to Julian and for the 
Nature Preserve to have for their interpretive programs.”
Gagnon, who liked the idea of becoming an archeologist when 
he was older, told Michigan Radio about his experience giving 
the University ownership of a certified fossil.
“I signed my name like two times on a very special piece of 
paper with a very special pen,” Gagnon said.
LSA sophomore Oona Woodbury said she has grown more 
interested in paleontology since taking the Earth 103 mini-
course called “Dinosaurs and Other Failures” and heard about 
the Mastodon tooth during class. She said she wishes she would 
have begun searching for fossils when she was younger and 
hopes that Gagnon’s story will inspire people to explore their 
geologic environments.
“I hope it makes people think about where our scientific 
knowledge comes from,” Woodbury said. “We do kind of, in 
paleontology at least, rely on things being donated to the public 
to be able to study them and to advance our scientific learning … 
And it’s so cool that this kid got this great experience, and it’s just 
the tip of the iceberg of this whole topic.”
Daily Staff Reporter Vanessa Kiefer can be reached at vkiefer@
umich.edu.

Six-year-old donates rare 
Mastodon tooth to Michigan 
Museum of Paleontology

Julian Gagnon found fossil while hiking in 
Rochester Hills, Mich.

CAMPUS LIFE

BECCA MAHON/Daily

Prairie View A&M President Ruth Simmons was chosen as the Winter 2021 Commencement speaker.

SCHLISSEL
From Page 1

VANESSA KIEFER 
Daily Staff Reporter

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

