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Students

Parents

Alumni

Faculty & Staff

Academics

Academic Programs

Students benefit from one-on-one instruction and personalized attention. In fact, Simmons College of Kentucky’s 9 to 1 student-faculty ratio ranks in the top five of all HBCUs.

Financial Aid

Tuition & Fees

Grants, scholarships, loans, or paid employment opportunities offered to assist students with meeting Simmons’ education-related expenses.

Scholarships

State & Private

The Evolve502 Scholarship is a last-dollar scholarship program that covers a student’s college tuition after federal and state aid has been applied.

Shop

Simmons Shop

Buy our latest apparel and campus-ready styles to show your Simmons school spirit.

Falcon Life

Campus & Residential

We take pride in creating an environment where students can confidently connect with their institution, develop essential life and career skills, and progress steadily toward their academic goals.

Admissions

Prospective Students

2.5 or higher (Standardized test optional)

2.49 – 2.0 (Standardized test scores required)

Band

Marching & Dancing

Marching Falcons
Satin Rhythm Dance Team

Alumni

1930 Society

Join the Simmons College Alumni Society.

Athletics

Teams & Info

Golf
Women’s Basketball
Men’s Basketball
Track & Field

About

About Simmons

The Simmons College experience is about more than just earning a degree. It’s about growing personally and spiritually while expanding our students’ understanding of global cultures.

About Simmons

Over 140 Years of Academic Excellence

Kentucky's First HBCU

The Simmons College experience is about more than just earning a degree: It’s about growing personally and spiritually. It’s about expanding our students’ understanding of global cultures. It’s about putting them in position to make a positive difference in the world.

Simmons College offers Black students an environment where they can explore the world from a familiar place with the support of a welcoming, learning family. Developing and nurturing the potential of tomorrow’s Black leaders – tomorrow’s difference makers – is our purpose, and it represents the dreams of the formerly enslaved persons who built our college more than 140 years ago. 

A REWARDING UNDERGRADUATE EXPERIENCE

Students benefit from one-on-one instruction and personalized attention. In fact, Simmons College of Kentucky’s 9 to 1 student-faculty ratio ranks in the top five of all HBCUs.

Our campus is located in the heart of Louisville’s bustling downtown, convenient to entertainment, restaurants and housing. Plus, it’s only a few hours’ drive from Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Nashville, Atlanta and other exciting destinations.

Office of the President

13TH PRESIDENT OF SIMMONS COLLEGE OF KENTUCKY

Dr. Kevin Cosby

A staunch proponent of education, Dr. Cosby earned a Bachelor’s degree from Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, a Master of Divinity degree from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, and a Doctor of Ministry degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. Most recently, President Cosby earned a second doctorate – a Ph.D. in Public Policy (as a Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholar) from Union Institute & University in Cincinnati, OH. He has been awarded honorary doctorates from Eastern Kentucky University, Bellarmine University, and Campbellsville University.

Dr. Cosby has held administrative and teaching assignments at Kentucky State University, the University of Louisville, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and United Theological Seminary. His exceptional oratory skills have led to lecture engagements at universities and institutions worldwide, including Harvard University.

In 2005, Dr. Cosby was inaugurated as the 13th President of Simmons College of Kentucky. In 2007, he led the once-fledgling college to reclaim its original campus, lost during the Great Depression, and has since expanded to multiple campus locations. From 1879 to 1930, Simmons College was a national leader in higher education for African Americans. Established by formerly enslaved Kentucky Baptists, Simmons became a full university with a law school and a medical school. But during the Great Depression, its campuses suffered foreclosure, and as its programs were scaled back, it became a small Bible college in a remote part of the city’s poorest area.

Dr. Cosby has refused nearly $1,000,000 in compensation that would otherwise be due to someone of his stature to ensure the college’s economic stability and build a comprehensive curriculum. Under Dr. Cosby’s visionary leadership, Simmons gained accreditation by the Association of Biblical Higher Education (ABHE). In 2015, the U.S. Department of Education granted Simmons status as the nation’s 107th Historically Black College and University (HBCU).

He is one of our nation’s most influential leaders: He was inducted into the Gallery of Great Black Kentuckians at the Kentucky State Capitol (2015); at the request of Muhammad Ali, he served as one of the eulogists at his funeral (2016); and he was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers of Morehouse College (2017). Dr. Cosby is the author of six books, including a Biblical commentary on the American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) entitled: “Getting to the Promise Land,” published by Westminster John Knox Press in the Spring of 2021. Dr. Cosby is married to Barnetta Cosby. They have two adult children (Dr. Christine Cosby-Gaither and Kevin Christopher).

Strategic Goals
  1. To equip every student with strong writing, research, and critical thinking skills.
  2. To cultivate students who are committed to personal and professional excellence, the holistic development of the self, and lifelong learning.
  3. To develop in every student a view of life, vocation–and the world–rooted in biblical interpretation and the Kingdom of God.
  4. To produce distinguished leaders committed to community development, social justice, and civic duty, particularly in urban churches and urban communities.
The Simmons College Mission

Simmons College of Kentucky is an institution of biblical higher education dedicated to educating people through strong academic and professional programs, in order that they may become productive citizens and agents of change in society.

Our History

Over 140 Years of academic excellence

Simmons History

FORMED AFTER THE CIVIL WAR

In 1865, members of the Kentucky State Convention of Colored Baptist Churches proposed the establishment of Kentucky’s first post-secondary educational institute for its “Colored” citizens. The State Convention purchased four acres of land in Louisville to serve as the campus for the Kentucky Normal and Theological Institute in 1879.

Dr. William Simmons became the second President in 1880 and led the Institute through a period of rapid growth in enrollment and facilities. Although Dr. Simmons’ tenure ended in 1890, he set the foundation for continued growth, which included a dramatic expansion of the liberal arts program and the attainment of university status.

Our Trustees

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Accreditation

Accreditation

Simmons College Of Kentucky is accredited by the Association For Biblical Higher Education (ABHE) Commission On Accreditation (5850 T.G. Lee Blvd., Suite 130, Orlando, FL 32822, 407.207.0808) to grant certificates and degrees at the associate and baccalaureate levels.

This agency is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as requiring the same high academic standards as other national and regional accreditors.

Simmons is licensed by the Kentucky Council on Post-secondary Education.

Case for Support

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Case For Support

Simmons College of Kentucky has a long tradition of leadership in social justice initiatives for Black Americans. Simmons will continue to be a center of excellence in social justice thought. It will continue to bring outstanding scholars and thinkers together to comment on the status quo and set standards for a just and ethical democracy. This social justice imperative pervades all of Simmons’ degree programs and is unique in higher education because it brings the history and perspective of Black Americans into focus throughout all areas of the curriculum.

Simmons is an economic engine for the city of Louisville., creating employment, generating revenue, taxes, and renovation projects. Simmons College of Kentucky is geographically situated within Louisville’s Black community, thus making it accessible to talented, yet overlooked citizens with great-untapped potential.

For low-income Black youth, Louisville’s only HBCU provides a unique environment in which they can grow and flourish. The college’s Black-centric curriculum, is undergirded by faith-based ethics, and values: Black role models who build strong relationships with students, all work together to instill in its graduates the discipline, and perseverance needed to create a new path for their lives and communities. Being in a community of Black learners and inspiring Black scholars provides a context for learning for students who have suffered the reality of racism and deprivation and enlivens them with a vision what they can achieve with their good work and dedication.

Our Future

Simmons’ future is based on embracing its unique history and mission to provide a comprehensive education that prepares graduates who have the ability to think critically, communicate effectively, and apply knowledge to complex problems in an ethical way. Through its mission, Simmons seeks to build leaders who have the strength of character to define proudly who they are, the vision to articulate social equity for an ethical world, and the perseverance to effect positive change in all phases of their work, families, and communities.
The Teacher Education Initiative

Developing a teacher education program for preparing licensed secondary school teachers will be the anchor of Simmons’ future identity and organizational development.

Upgrade Academic Offerings

Future degree offerings could include Data Science, Psychology, Applied Mathematics, Black Male Studies, Womanist Studies, Music Education, and Sports Management.

Develop Qualified & Accredited Distance Learning Platforms

Online course offerings offer the potential to increase enrollment, tuition, and sustainability.

Create a Full Compliment of HBCU Cultural Experiences

Black students attend an HBCU because they seek a full range of interpersonal and cultural experiences that include Greek life, intramural sports, athletic teams and facilities, student government, and other co-curricular activities.

Improve Infrastructure & Facilities

Addition of a student center & library, athletic structures, renovation of facilities, and stable operations.

Outcomes & Performance

An Affordable Education

Outcomes & Performance

Data as reflected in the IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) Outcome Measures Reports. Numbers reflect total cohorts (both full- and part-time entering students, both Pell- and non-Pell eligible students, exclusive of “transfer-out” students). “150% Graduation Rate” reflects students who complete a traditional four-year baccalaureate degree within 6 years of starting.

Employment Rates for Graduates of Professional Programs

Simmons College of Kentucky did not offer any professional programs (programs that prepare a student for any kind of professional licensure, like nursing, dental assisting, or teacher preparation) during the previous three reporting years, therefore employment placement rate reporting is not required of the College.

Retention Rates at Simmons

Institutional Effectiveness

Simmons College

Institutional Effectiveness

What You Need to Know About Assessment

What is Assessment?

Assessment is an ongoing process to determine the effectiveness of an institution’s programs, services, and operations. Assessment provides a systematic approach to providing evidence of continuous improvement in programs, services, and operations.

Assessment at Simmons College of Kentucky is expected to:

  1. Be an ongoing process that serves as a formative means of assessing a unit’s strategic vision
  2. Involve a systematic gathering, analyzing, and interpreting of data to determine how well performance matches expectations
  3. Use the resulting information to understand and improve programs, services, and operations.

Why is Assessment Important?

We engage in assessment activities for four main reasons: Improve programs and services through assessment results that
identify areas for change; Support decision-making processes, planning, program reviews and accountability; Demonstrate that a program or service is accomplishing what it
claims it is accomplishing or that students are learning what it is
intended that they learn; Inform students, faculty, staff, and other stakeholders of the state of student learning or of a program or service and its impact.

How is Assessment Related to Accreditation?

The Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE) Standard 2b, with which Simmons College of Kentucky must comply, states: “The institution demonstrates that it is accomplishing and can continue to accomplish its mission, goals, and program objectives and improve performance through a regular, comprehensive, and sustainable system of assessment and planning. Central to this plan is the systematic and specific assessment of student learning and development through a strategy that measures the student’s knowledge, skills, and competencies against institutional and programmatic goals.”

⟶ Read the full Overview

Documents & Resources

Simmons About & Tech Support

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SIMMONS EMAIL INSTRUCTIONS

Using Your Simmons Email

GETTING AND USING YOUR SIMMONS EMAIL

As a student you MUST use your Simmons email. WHY?

  • Your professors will email your assignments and announcements to this email address.
  • We will email you important information about billing and registration.
  • If you qualify for a special scholarship, we will email such notices to you.
  • To function in the world today, you must use and read emails.We will send notices to your personal (non-Simmons email) ONLY for the purpose of helping you set up your Simmons email.
Internet Safety

NEVER USE THE SAME EMAIL FOR YOUR BANKING THAT YOU USE FOR YOUR REGULAR MAIL.

  • Why? If someone hacked your email, they could zap up all your money.

NEVER GIVE YOUR PERSONAL PASSWORDS TO ANYONE ELSE.

  • That gives them control over your business and your life. Okay, if you parents pay all your bills, they should have your passwords.

WHEN CHECKING YOUR PERSONAL EMAIL AT A PUBLIC Wi-Fi

  • Be sure to log out of your web mail. Anyone coming behind you would see and have access to all your records.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU DOWNLOAD.

  • A top goal of cyber criminals is to trick you into downloading malware—programs that try to steal information. This malware can be disguised as anything from a popular game to something that checks traffic or the weather.
Beware Scams

Share these tips with your friends, parents, and grandparents.

SIMMONS COLLEGE WILL NEVER ASK YOU TO GO BUY GIFT CARDS AND PHONE OR EMAIL THE NUMBERS

Your relatives will not do this either, even if they are traveling out of town.

PAY VENDORS THROUGH PAYPAL

It’s easy to get a Paypal Account, which has dual levels of security and prevents vendors from knowing your personal credit card information. With Paypal you can easily send Money to family and friends, and pay your bills and shop online with greater security.

MASKING

Clever thieves will send an email that looks real: It might say president@simmonscollege.net, which looks authentic but is not a Simmons address. It might even say it’s from an actual Simmons email, but when you hit reply, it says
[mailto: xyz123@yahoo.com]. People will impersonate others to trick you and con you out of your money.

THE NIGERIAN PRINCE – YOU’VE WON THE AUSTRALIAN LOTTERY SCAM

If you get an email asking to use your bank account to deposit money, that is a scam, no matter how great it sounds. There are many variations of this scam. Here’s how it goes: they deposit a check in your bank account, you start spending the money, and then the check bounces. You will owe the bank huge fees for bouncing and over-drafts. The thief is from another country and cannot be found.

THE IRS SCAM

If you get a phone call or email saying you owe the IRS and they are going to garnishee your bank account or arrest you unless you call them now and pay up, it’s a scam. The IRS only sends bills through written mail. It uses email only if you have signed up with them for that.

YOUR BANK CALLS AND ASKS FOR YOUR PASSWORD SCAM

Many elderly people fall for this scam. No bank officer will ever phone you and ask for your password to your account, to verify your social security number, or your debit card pin number. It’s a thief.

We live in an electronic age. You have to be savvy on the internet just as you would be walking alone down a dark street at night. Here are some links to learn more:

https://www.fbi.gov/scams-and-safety/common-fraud-schemes

Did you know that young people ages 20-29 more often fall for scams than those over 70?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/9-internet-scams-still-falling-2018-190146104.html

Preventative Actions

Don’t click on links in spam, unexpected or suspicious emails.

Never open attachments in emails from someone you don’t know. Cybercriminals often distribute fake email messages that closely resemble email notifications from an online store, a bank, the police, a court, or a tax collection agency. They lure recipients into clicking on a malicious link that will release the malware into their system.
Be aware that any account can be compromised, and malicious links can be sent from email and social media accounts of friends, colleagues or an online gaming partner. If an attachment you’ve received from a contact seems suspicious, it’s better to ask the sender about it on a trusted channel, such as a phone call.

Avoid sharing personal data.
Cybercriminals planning a ransomware attack will try to gather your personal data in advance, so as to make their trap more convincing. They will do so, for instance, through phishing emails targeting you specifically.

If you receive a call, text, or email from an untrusted or unverified source that asks for personal information, don’t provide it. Always confirm the contact’s authenticity.
If you are contacted by a company asking for information, ignore the request. Instead, contact the company independently, via the contact details on its official website, to verify whether this request is genuine.

Be meticulous with sensitive data.
Sensitive data must be treated differently from day-to-day data.

Store pictures, business documents, personal data, etc. on separate devices for longer-term storage.
Remove data when no longer necessary, such as temp files, browser histories, old pictures/texts, etc.
Ensure all accounts use unique and strong passwords to mitigate the damage if the credentials are released.
Update your passwords frequently, and consider using a password manager.
Also, consider storing sensitive files encrypted at the user level (beyond full-disk encryption).

Consider using multi-factor authentication on your important online accounts.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is an extra layer of security used to make sure that people trying to gain access to an online service (such as banking, email, or social media accounts) are who they say they are.
After you’ve entered your username and password, you will be required to provide another piece of information (second step). This information should be something that only you can access, for instance a code sent by text message, or a code generated by an Authenticator.
MFA is available on most of the major online services. While some of them will have it activated by default, in some others you will need to manually switch it on. Check out the security settings of your account (it could also be called ‘two-step verification’).

Be wary while browsing the internet and do not click on suspicious links, pop-ups, or dialogue boxes.
These are links you don’t recognize or don’t contain any words that make sense. Clicking on them might download malware to your systems, with the link often not leading to the intended website. If you aren’t sure, run the website through a search engine first to see if it really exists.

Browse and download only official versions of software and always from trusted websites.

If you are downloading something on your phone or tablet, make sure you use reputable sources and stores, like the App Store (Apple) or Google Play Store (Android). The best way to determine whether a website is fraudulent is to pay close attention to the URL. The domain name in the URL should match the name of the website. An HTTPS connection and displaying the padlock icon are signs of secure connection, but this doesn’t mean you can trust it.

Never connect unfamiliar USB sticks to your systems.

Don’t insert USB or other removal storage devices into your computer if you do not know where they came from. Cybercriminals may have infected the device with ransomware and left it in a public space to lure you into using it.

Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) when using public Wi-Fi.

When you connect to a public Wi-Fi network, your device is more vulnerable to attacks. To stay protected, avoid using public Wi-Fi for confidential transactions, or use a secure VPN.

Ensure that your security software and operating system are up to date.
When your operating system (OS) or applications release a new version, install it. If the software offers the option of automatically installing updates, take it.

Do not use high privilege accounts (accounts with administrator rights) for daily business.
Admin rights allow users to install new software and control the way the systems operate. Perform daily tasks through a standard user account instead. This will help prevent harming your system if you click on a malicious executable file or if a hacker infiltrates the network.

Enable the ‘Show file extensions’ option in the Windows settings on your computer.
This will make it much easier to spot potentially malicious programs. Stay away from file extensions such as ‘.exe’, ‘.vbs’ and ‘.scr’. Scammers can queue multiple extensions to disguise a malicious executable such as a video, photo, or document (like hot-chics.avi.exe or doc.scr).

Turn on local firewall.
Turn on your local firewall to defend against unauthorized access.

  • On Apple devices: System Preferences > Security & Privacy.
  • On Windows devices: Start > Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security > Firewall & network protection.

Infected… What to do next?

If you discover a rogue or unknown process on your machine, disconnect it immediately from the internet or other network connections (such as home Wi-Fi) — this will prevent the infection from spreading.
Don’t pay the ransom. You will be financing criminals and encouraging them to continue their illegal activities. There is no guarantee that you will get access to your data or device, and you are more likely to be targeted again in the future.

Take a photograph or a screenshot of the ransom note presented on your screen.
If available, use antivirus or anti-malware software to clean the ransomware from your device. You may have to reboot your system into Safe Mode.

Removing the ransomware will not decrypt your files, but it will let you carry out the following steps without new files becoming encrypted.

If you had a backup, restore the information, and read our advice to prevent you from becoming a victim again.

If you do not have a backup, visit www.nomoreransom.org to check whether your device has been infected with one of the ransomware variants for which we have decryption tools available free of charge. The information regarding the ransomware note will be useful in this process.
Report it to your national police. The more information you provide, the more effectively law enforcement can disrupt the criminal enterprise.

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