When Community Assistant Julie Sygiel '09 asked her residents last year at 111 Brown Street what activities they would like to plan for the Fall 2006 semester, all 13 students agreed - they wanted to dine with President Ruth Simmons.
Despite receiving about 600 invitations every year to events on campus and off, Simmons came to visit the residents and enjoy a home-cooked meal two months later.
"We were really happy that she accepted," Sygiel said. "We wanted to show our appreciation to her for everything that she does for Brown and just get to know her better."
But opportunities for Simmons to accept such invitations are rare because her calendar is often crowded with speeches, alumni events and international travel before the school year even begins.
"We worry about this every year, about the schedule getting locked in too early," Simmons said. "By the time we start the year, the schedule is pretty full."
"It's a nightmare," Assistant to the President Marisa Quinn said of the tightly packed schedule. "We call it a riddle without an answer."
But Simmons always leaves some time in her schedule. "I really like spontaneity when it comes to students," Simmons said. Students are "always surprised" when they send her an e-mail inviting her somewhere and she accepts, she said.
Simmons said she regularly receives invitations for events on campus, many of them casual requests from students asking her out for ice cream, to tea on Valentine's Day and, once, even "to go on a pub crawl." Students have also invited her to do things such as act in a movie, sing or dance.
Despite her desire to accommodate students' requests when possible, Simmons is cautious not to accept invitations unless she knows what she's getting into.
"Students usually ask me to do something silly. I know that it's going straight to YouTube," Simmons said.
"The one time I got suckered into something and didn't know what I was doing was when I was asked to carry the Olympic Flame when it came to Providence, which meant you had to run with the flame," Simmons recalled. "That, I would say, was not my finest hour."
Simmons said she tries to send invitations, too, rather than just receive them. This year she invited the men's soccer team to her house for dinner to recognize a successful fall season.
Simmons also held a dinner for Brown employees last year in the downstairs kitchen of the Sharpe Refectory, and she is planning another this spring. The idea is to invite "staff that she doesn't get to see, but who are working really hard," Quinn said.
"It's great fun to see how they work, where they work and it really just shows some appreciation for just how hard they work in the food service," Simmons said.
Simmons also attends student events that are scheduled "well in advance," like dance shows and athletic events.
Events that arise on shorter notice are less likely to drawing her presence. Jesse Maddox '08, executive director of the Janus Forum, invited Simmons to give opening remarks for the group's recent lecture: "Divided World, United Nations?: The Role of the U.S. Within the U.N.," but she declined.
"I think we invited her a little too late for her to be able to make it," he said, acknowledging her busy schedule. Her not attending the event was "nothing personal," he added.
In reality, with invitations filling her mailbox on a daily basis, Simmons turns most down.
"In essence, 95 percent of what comes in, you just have no chance of doing," Simmons said.
Over the years, Simmons and her staff have developed certain "principles" to help choose which invitations to accept and which to decline, particularly when it comes to events that will take her away from College Hill.
Simmons seeks guidance from different offices and departments on campus, generally rules out any invitations for minor speaking roles and avoids being away at certain "peak times" of the year. She also is reluctant to turn down invitations from donors and other individuals who are "important to Brown," she said.
But mostly, Simmons said, she returns to one basic rule: "If I do it, it should be good for Brown."
