Professor Simmons' contributions to the department and to scholarship included authoring seven books, developing the program of study in Spanish American Colonial Literature at Indiana University, and serving as director of graduate studies for seven years and department chair for five.

Each fall, the department honors Professor Simmons by inviting a distinguished alum to visit Bloomington, speak to the department's faculty and students, and reconnect with his or her roots as a part of the Merle E. Simmons Distinguished Alumni (MESDA) Lecture.

On September 13, 2019, Professor Cindy Brantmeier (PhD '00, Hispanic Linguistics, Indiana University) presented the annual MESDA lecture in honor of Professor Simmons. Dr. Brantmeier is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Education and Director of Applied Linguistics at Washington University in St. Louis. Most recently, she was named the inaugural Faculty Fellow in International Research in the office of the Vice Chancellor for Research. Her research connects literacy, language learning, and assessment to international and cross-cultural studies. She has been awarded the honor of Distinguished Visiting Professor of Applied Linguistics in the school of Foreign Languages at Northeast Normal University in Changchun, China, where she is currently collaborating on new research projects that examine second language reading in China. Brantmeier has published 5 edited volumes and special editions, and over 50 journal articles and book chapters. Her work appears in outstanding venues such as Reading in a Foreign Language, the Reading Matrix, Foreign Language Annals, System and the Modern Language Journal. She serves on the editorial boards for several journals including Reading in a Foreign Language, the Journal of Language and Linguistics, and the Reading Matrix. Brantmeier delivered the plenary address at the UNESCO International Conference on Literacy in Chile in 2017, as well as the plenary address at the World Congress of Linguistics in Taiwan last year. She has been recognized by the Graduate Student Senate of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Washington University three times for excellence in mentoring and she was the 2017-2018 recipient of their Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award. She is also the recipient of Washington University's Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award, which is given to only one faculty member each year. In her talk, "Being a Citizen of the World: Research on Reading Across Languages and Cultures," Brantmeier demonstrated how her research on literacy spans a range of cultural, socioeconomic, and global frontiers. Taking literacy as a fundamental human right as a starting point, Brantmeier used her talk to show how adult literacy, in first and second languages, is essential for access to paths for success. Throughout her discussion, Brantmeier included examples of her own work, which has ranged from studies of English-speaking university learners of Spanish to work with adult learners of English in St. Louis community learning programs and adult learners of global languages in Spanish-speaking countries and China. The common thread throughout her research, and also her talk, was that literacy represents the intricate connection between a host of discrete abilities, such as knowledge of grammar and vocabulary and, once achieved, provides access to full participation in a variety of benefits and activities. Her research has implications for areas such as testing and assessment, as well as benefits for our understanding of outreach and community engagement.