Brown President Ruth J. Simmons was honored at the Providence Preservation Society’s 2012 Historic Preservation Awards Tuesday evening, May 15, for her role in shepherding numerous renovation and restoration projects to completion on campus. The awards ceremony took place at Brown’s new Nelson Fitness Center. Gary Brewer of Robert A.M. Stern Architects delivered the keynote address on his experience as lead architect of the fitness center project and the role of traditional architecture on campus. Also honored: Brown’s Ladd Observatory for its renovation of the Transit Room. During President Simmons’s tenure, Brown has devoted more than $200 million to the preservation and repurposing of historic buildings on the Brown campus, including Sayles Hall, the Peter Green House, Pembroke Hall, Lyman Hall, Metcalf Chemistry and Research Lab, Rhode Island Hall, and the retrofitting of Faunce House as the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center. Two factories in the Jewelry District have also been renovated and made part of the Brown campus beyond College Hill: 222 Richmond St. has become the Alpert Medical School’s new home, and the former Speidel watchband factory at 70 Ship St. now houses the Laboratories for Molecular Medicine.