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After an unusually long tenure of nearly 30 years as president of the American Museum of Natural History, Ellen V. Futter informed the board on Wednesday that she will step down next March, following the planned opening of the institution’s new Richard Gilder Science Center. Education and Innovation.

“It was an incredible run and I feel so proud and grateful for the time I spent,” 72-year-old Futter said in a phone interview. “The opening of the Gilder Center marks the completion of my work and a good moment for new leadership for the museum.”

The board will immediately begin the search for Futter’s replacement. “They’re huge shoes that need to be filled, there’s no doubt about it,” said the museum’s president, Scott Bok, in an interview. “But it leaves us in a position to find someone great.”

Regarding whether the board should try to appoint someone of color, given the current emphasis on diversity in the museum world, Bok said an as yet unhired outside executive search firm would be “instructed to bring us a miscellaneous page.” candidates.”

Given the museum’s size – with an operating budget of approximately $178 million and more than 1,000 full and part-time staff – and its public role as an institution occupying a city-owned building and land, the position would be required. “An experienced butler,” Bok added.

“We want someone who is a great leader, collaborative, peer, and has an effective link with key constituencies, including New York City,” he said. “We’re going to want a strong fundraiser because we can’t do everything we want to do with just admissions income and support from the city. It’s a big job.”

For the past three decades, Futter has presided over a museum that seems both frozen in time and moving forward with change. On the one hand, the dioramas with which the museum is closely related – some featuring Native tribes – endured, are reliable for repeat visitors and also a symbol of the institution’s slowness in development, especially in a world newly sensitive to the new sensibility. cultural stereotypes and inaccuracies. (There were scenes finally changed in 2019.) Last month, Northwest Beach Lounge reopened With a new emphasis on the lives of indigenous peoples.

At the same time, several significant new developments took place at the museum, such as the opening of the new Rose Center for Earth and Space and its Gilder Center in 2000.

In carrying out these projects, Futter often had to navigate tough city politics. With its glass dome towering among the pre-war buildings of the Upper West Side, the Rose Center for Earth and Space was originally considered sacred by some residents. But in the end, it was widely celebrated by critics and welcomed by the community.

“Here is that rare instance of a time, a place, a function, a rare occasion where an architect and a client (hero Ellen V. Futter, director of the museum) are perfectly aligned to produce an intelligent design that will also appeal to a wide audience. is an example. public taste”, architectural critic Herbert Muschamp Wrote In The New York Times in 2000. “It’s like finding another world.”

When is the museum in 2015 announced plans To build the Gilder Center, a neighborhood association opposed the project going into the adjacent Theodore Roosevelt Park, owned by the city. In response to these concerns, the museum decided to remove three of its existing buildings to make room for the six-story addition, rather than protrude more into the tree-lined area along Columbus Avenue. And the curvilinear addition of stone and glass designed by architect Jeanne Gang to be completed.

Adrian Benepe, president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, said that during his years as the city’s parks commissioner, he was impressed by Futter’s ability to balance such “townsy” tensions without being overbearing. It was always very clear: ‘We don’t own this park, it belongs to the City of New York. On how he runs a major cultural institution in New York.”

In 2020, the museum will reopen its bronze statue. Theodore Roosevelton horseback and surrounded by a Native American and an African man who had presided over the entrance since 1940. come to symbolize The painful legacy of colonial expansion and racial discrimination – would collapse. After years of objections by activists, the decision, proposed by the museum and accepted by the city, comes amid the racial reckoning sparked by the murder of George Floyd.

Futter has also had to manage traumatic world events such as the September 11 attacks, the 2008 economic downturn, and the coronavirus pandemic that have wreaked havoc on cultural institutions across the country.

And Futter has focused on the museum’s potentially important role as an educator at a time when concerns about climate change are rising. museum since 2008, Richard Gilder Graduate Schooloffered a doctorate. in comparative biology, and in 2011 the museum established a separate master’s program in science teaching.

Half of the public school teachers currently hired with a primary certificate in earth sciences each year in New York City graduate from a master’s program, the museum said.

The integrity of the museum’s stance on science was tested in 2017 by protests against one of its board members, Rebekah Mercer. Mercer had used her family’s millions to fund organizations that question climate change, the cornerstone of the conservative agenda she developed as an influential member of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition team.

after it happens printed by scientists and other academics, Mercer quietly took a step back in 2019.

Futter came to the museum 13 years later as president of Barnard College, where he was the youngest person to hold the presidency of a major American college at age 29. When he was appointed as the museum director in 1993, first A woman to head a major New York-based museum.

Futter, with a no-nonsense demeanor, became a solid, deliberate steward who managed to lead the establishment without fireworks or demonstrations. He also largely avoided controversy, e.g. he survived, 2010 disclosures living rent-free in the $5 million East Side apartment that the museum bought when it started (he’ll be moving out when he leaves the museum).

Some may inevitably criticize Futter for making it more or less slow. But in the end, others say, it made a multi-storey museum go as fast as it could.

“How many millions of kids went on class trips and looked at a giant buffalo or that herd of elephants?” said Ben. “There probably wouldn’t be animals embalmed as stellar charms in museums today, but they understood that this is a fundamental part of the history of this museum and they enjoyed coming to see it. Ellen understood the need to maintain certain things in people’s minds that were purely museum-related, while also modernizing and dealing with social issues.”

Futter said he is 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 used to tell me it was their favorite place, but nothing changes,” he said. “I’m proud that they still happily say it’s their favorite place, but things have changed. Fundamental to us is not the fundamental mission of science and education, but how we fulfill it.”