Yuin elder Aunty Ruth Simms has been awarded a posthumous Doctor of Letters by the University of New South Wales for 50 years as an Aboriginal Education Officer in NSW public schools. The ceremony was held this week in her hometown of Nowra on the NSW South Coast, ABC News reported.

Dr Simms, born in La Perouse in 1941, died aged 85 on 27 September after a long battle with cancer. She was laid to rest in Nowra on 30 September. ABC published her name and image with her family’s permission.

Professor Leanne Holt, deputy vice-chancellor of UNSW’s Indigenous division, presented the doctorate to her daughter, Trudy Trindall. Holt said the decision was unanimous and that it was about legacy: Aunty Ruth contributed to local and national curriculum and to international knowledge.

Months before her death, the university told her she would receive the honour. Despite failing health, she planned the ceremony, choosing speakers and asking her daughter to accept the award. Trindall called it bittersweet; if her mother had been there, she would have looked “deadly” in the cap and gown.

Her path changed in 1976, when she was offered an Aboriginal educator role at Nowra Public School. Trindall remembered carrying the job-offer letter home. At first her mother was not even introduced to staff. She then built a reputation as a hard worker with Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. “I can get any child to read,” she told a woman, her daughter recalled.

She worked at several Shoalhaven public schools and received an Order of Australia medal in 2012 for Aboriginal education. ABC said she was NSW’s longest-serving Aboriginal Education Officer. Education secretary Murat Dizdar said she would be deeply missed.

The South Coast Register wrote after her death that the UNSW ceremony at Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre on 13 October would go ahead at the family’s request. ABC confirmed the award was presented in Nowra this week.

It is the university’s honorary distinction, not a research PhD. Her family accepted it in her name.

Image: MrActiniuM, Shoalhaven River near Nowra, 23 December 2024, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The ceremony town’s landscape, not a portrait of Aunty Ruth.

Sources consulted: Aunty Ruth Simms awarded posthumous doctorate for 50 years of Aboriginal education — ABC News; Aunty Ruth Simms: Tributes for beloved Indigenous elder — South Coast Register.