Cheryl Doddy Howard ’71
Cheryl Howard ’71 relishes having come “full circle” during her decades-long association with Simmons University. After earning her undergraduate degree, she embarked on graduate school and a high-flying business career, later returning to Simmons as an administrator and President’s Council member. She also taught at the University.
“It was an incredible career high to work at the institution that made such a difference in my life,” says Howard, who retired from Simmons in 2018 as senior vice president of diversity & inclusion and leadership initiatives. Earlier, she was vice president of marketing and admission. Howard’s Simmons “circle” also includes arranging a planned gift to the University—a bequest in her will.
“Education is a focus of ours,” says Howard of a priority shared with her husband, Jeffrey. “My family has always been about education,” she adds, noting both her parents earned advanced degrees from Columbia University. “I believe education makes a difference in changing a family, and changing someone’s success in this country,” says Howard. “I want to help students achieve a college education with less debt so they can have a good life after graduation.”
Howard’s bequest is designated for scholarship support—an invaluable way to help put a Simmons education within reach. And using a bequest for that purpose can help alumnae/i and other donors make larger gifts than they might be able to make during their lifetime.
As she thinks about current and future Simmons students, Howard says she hopes they will be open “to unexpected possibilities and to careers they might not have thought of. That’s what happened to me,” says Howard.
Her original goal was to become a buyer at Saks Fifth Avenue. Howard credits the mentorship of Professor Margaret Hennig with expanding her horizons (Hennig and co-founding dean Anne Jardim created the first MBA program specifically for women at what became Simmons’ School of Management). “She enabled me to pursue a career far bigger, more ambitious, and more satisfying than I had ever imagined while growing up.”
Howard earned an MBA and DBA from Harvard University. She worked for 25 years at the Gillette Company and at Digital Equipment Corporation in national and international positions before circling back to Simmons.
Beyond encouraging students to be flexible about their career goals, Howard advises them to “get to know students of other backgrounds and other cultures and other economic circumstances.” Howard’s planned gift is a testament to her own expansive outlook.