Michigan State University President Lou Anna K. Simon will be inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame, one of five contemporary honorees announced this week.
“Lou Anna Kimsey Simon of East Lansing is the twentieth—and first woman—president of Michigan State University,” the Lansing-based Michigan Women’s Historical Center & Hall of Fame said in its announcement. “Simon leads the university’s work to advance the common good in Michigan and around the world. She has expanded MSU’s reach by focusing the university’s strengths on solutions that protect and enhance quality of life, including clean water, safe and plentiful food, sustainable energy and health care.”
The Indiana native was named president of MSU in 2005, but has served as provost and in other positions with the university since earning her doctorate degree in higher education here in 1974.
“It’s humbling to be selected for induction into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame,” Simon said. “I appreciate it deeply, but I have to say that it really is a tribute to the work of Team MSU.”
She currently chairs the board of directors of the prestigious Association of American Universities as well as the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, and serves on the boards or executive committees of the Council on Competitiveness, Business Leaders For Michigan, the Detroit Economic Club and several other regional and national organizations.
Simon will be inducted to the hall of fame this year together with contemporaries Olivia Letts, the first African-American hired to teach in the Lansing School District; Motown legend Diana Ross; the Rev. Faith Fowler, founder and executive director of Cass Community Social Services; and scholar, author, activist and community organizer Anan Ameri of Detroit, founding Director of the Arab American National Museum. Five historical inductions also will be made.
The induction ceremony will be held at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center October 19. For more information, go to michiganwomen.org.