After an unusually long term of nearly 30 years as director of the American Museum of Natural History, Ellen V. Footer will resign in March next year as the institution’s new Richard Gilder Science Center was scheduled to open. I notified the meeting. Education and innovation.
“It was an incredible run, and I feel very proud and grateful for my time,” Futter, 72, said in a telephone interview. “The opening of the Guilder Center marks a good moment for the museum to complete my work and for new leadership.”
The board will immediately start searching for Futter alternatives. “They are huge shoes to fill, and there is no doubt about it,” the museum’s chairman, Scott Bock, said in an interview. “But she puts us in a position to find great people.”
Given the current emphasis on diversity in the museum world, I said that unemployed external executive search firms are “diversified” as to whether the board will seek to appoint colored races. You will be instructed to bring us a slate. ” Of the candidate. “
Given the size of the museum (with an operating budget of approximately $ 178 million and more than 1,000 full-time and part-time staff) and its public role as a city-owned institution, this position is an experienced height. I need my steward. Added.
“We want someone to be a great leader, collaborative, collaborative and effective liaison with key members, including New York City,” he said. “You’ll want someone who is a strong fundraiser because you can’t do everything you want with admission revenue and city support alone. That’s a big job.”
For the past three decades, Futter has presided over museums that seem to freeze over time and move forward with change. On the one hand, the museum-related diorama (some of which feature indigenous peoples) is tolerable and reliable for repeaters, while at the same time the slow evolution of the facility, especially in the new and sensitive world. It is a symbol of cultural stereotypes and inaccuracies. (The scene was finally fixed in 2019.) Last month, the Northwest Coast Hall reopened with a new focus on indigenous peoples’ lives.
At the same time, the museum had several major new developments. That is, in 2000, the new Rose Center for Earth and Space and its Guilder Center opened.
To realize these projects, Futter often had to navigate awkward urban politics. The Rose Center for Earth and Space was initially considered a sacrifice by some inhabitants because of the towering glass dome between the pre-war buildings on the Upper West Side. But in the end, it was widely celebrated by critics and welcomed by the community.
“This is a rare example of time, place, function, architect and client (the heroic Ellen V. Footer, the president of the museum) working together to create an intelligent design that appeals to a wide range of people. Architectural critic Herbert Muschamp wrote in the New York Times in 2000: “It’s like finding another world.”
When the museum announced plans to build a guilder center in 2015, a nearby delegation opposed the invasion of the project into the city’s adjacent Theodore Roosevelt Park. In response to these concerns, the museum decided to demolish three existing buildings to secure additional six-story space, rather than protruding further along the tree-lined avenue along Columbus Avenue. And the addition of curved stones and glass designed by architect Jeanne Gang is nearing completion.
Adrian Benepe, president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, said during his years as a city park commissioner he was impressed with Futter’s ability to rudely balance the tensions of such “town gowns.” rice field. “She was always very clear.” We don’t own this park. It belongs to New York City, “he said, and her board of directors, who attended as an ex officio member, said,” Master Class. It was. ” How to run a major cultural facility in New York City. “
In 2020, the museum presided over the entrance since 1940, with native American and African men riding horses adjacent to the Theodore Roosevelt, which has become a symbol of the tragic legacy of colonial expansion and racism. Announced the bronze statue of. — Will come down. After years of opposition from activists, the decision proposed by the museum and agreed by the city was in the midst of racial calculations prompted by the murder of George Floyd.
Futter also had to overcome traumatic world events that have hit cultural institutions across the country, such as the September 11th attack, the 2008 recession, and the coronavirus pandemic.
And Futter has been devoted to the potentially important role of the museum as an educator during times of growing concern about climate change. Since 2008, the museum has Richard Guilder Graduate School, I have a PhD. In the field of comparative biology, and in 2011, the museum established another master’s program to teach science.
Currently, in New York City, the museum states that half of the public school teachers employed each year with major qualifications in earth sciences are master’s graduates.
The integrity of the museum’s position on science as a matter of paramount was tested in 2017 by a protest against one of the board members. Rebekah Mercer.. Mercer spent millions of dollars in his family funding organizations that question climate change. This is the basis of her conservative agenda as a leading member of President Donald J. Trump’s transition team.
After being pressured by scientists and other scholars, Mercer quietly resigned in 2019.
Fatter came to the museum 13 years later as President of Barnard College. There, at the age of 29, she was the youngest person to become president of a major American university. When she was appointed president of the museum in 1993, she was the first woman to lead a major museum based in New York City.
In a nonsense way, Futter was a solid and intentional steward, successfully leading the institution without fireworks or showmanship. She also largely avoided controversy and survived the 2010 revelation that she lived for example in a $ 5 million Eastside apartment that she bought when the museum started without rent (she went to the museum). I will move when I leave).
Some may inevitably criticize Futter for being too late. But in the end, some say she moved the renowned museum forward as quickly as possible.
“Did millions of children go on class trips and stare at giant buffaloes and their herds of elephants?” Benepe said. “Maybe today’s museums don’t yet have stuffed animals as a star attraction. She realizes that this is a fundamental part of the museum’s history and they come to see it. Ellen understood not only the need to maintain certain things in people’s minds that were completely related to the museum, but also the need to modernize and address social issues. rice field.”
Fatter said he is very aware of the need to strike a balance between preserving the past, responding to the present, and preparing for the future. “When I first came here, people would tell me it was their favorite place, but nothing changed,” she said. “I’m proud to say they’re still happy to say that it’s their favorite place, but things have changed. It’s not the essential mission of science and education, which is our foundation. How to provide it. “
