Quincy University Board of Trustees adds provost from Hofstra

QUINCY – Gail Simmons of Kalamazoo, Mich., was added in October to the Quincy University Board of Trustees as its newest member.

“Simmons’ impressive background in higher education as a faculty member and executive will allow her to make many important contributions to Board deliberations,” Del Mitchell, chair of the QU Board of Trustees, said in a press release.

Simmons recently retired from Hofstra University in New York, where she served as provost and senior vice president of academic affairs and as a professor of biology. A native of Pittsburgh, Simmons recently returned to the Midwest to be closer to her family in Indiana. She has held faculty, administrative and executive appointments at Hofstra, Manhattanville College, the College of Staten Island, the College of New Jersey and the City College of the City University of New York.

Simmons has been a member of several local and community boards. In her role as provost at Hofstra, she was the chair for three years of the Colonial Academic Alliance, a 10-university academic consortium that included the College of William and Mary, Drexel University, Elon University, Northeastern University and the University of Delaware.

Simmons earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Pittsburgh and her doctorate from the University of California-Davis. Her specialty as a faculty member is in genetics.

“Quincy University is helping to build character, careers, and community for the people of Quincy, Illinois and the region, said Simmons. “I’m honored to lend my expertise in higher education to advancing an institution whose mission, to prepare its students to be transformative leaders who work for justice and peace, is so important in today’s world.”

The Quincy University Board of Trustees has 28 members, 18 of whom are alumni of the university. Some trustees live in or near Quincy, but other trustees live throughout the United States. Six current members of the Board are Franciscan friars. With the addition of Simmons, five QU trustees will have been full-time university faculty members.