Adele Smith Simmons (born June 21, 1941) is an American academic, business director, philanthropist, academic administrator, the third president of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts from 1977 to 1989 and the second president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation from 1989 to 1999. Simmons also served as the dean of student affairs at Princeton University, from 1972 to 1977, where she was the first female dean. Simmons currently serves as the president of the Global Philanthropy Partnership, a Chicago-based organization that "provides information and resources to donors and donor advisors interested in addressing issues of global importance." Biography Early life Simmons, born Adele Dunlap Smith, was born on June 21, 1941 in Lake Forest, Illinois to Hermon Dunlap Smith, former president of Marsh & McLennan who died in 1983, and Ellen Thorne, an ornithologist who died in 1977. Simmons grew up in Lake Forest, Illinois, an affluent suburb of Chicago. She has two sisters, Deborah Haight and Ellen Buchen, and one brother, Farwell Smith. Her father, Hermon Dunlap Smith was the president, chairman and chief executive officer of Marsh & McLennan Inc., the International Insurance Brokers, and chairman of the Field Foundation of Illinois. Simmons later attended Garrison Forest School, an exclusive girls' boarding school outside Baltimore, Maryland. Education Simmons attended Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she graduated with a B.A in 1963. While at Radcliffe College, Simmons served as a protégé of the college's president, Mary Bunting. Simmons subsequently attended Oxford University in Oxford, England, where she graduated with a Ph.D. in African history in 1969. For her doctoral thesis, Simmons stayed on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, gathering material for a book and for her doctoral thesis. Simmons went on to work as a reporter for The Economist from 1968 to 1969, where she covered North Africa before returning to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Career positions Simmons' past academic administrative positions include professor of African studies at Tufts University, dean of Jackson College for Women at Tufts University, professor of history at Princeton University, dean of student affairs at Princeton University (1972–77), Harvard University Harvard Board of Overseers board member (1972–79) where she was one of the first women elected, president of Hampshire College (1977–89), and president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, from 1989 to 1999. President of Hampshire College Simmons served as president of Hampshire College in Amherst,