Ellen V. Futter, 1976 - 1993

Ellen V. Futter became acting president of Barnard in 1980 and was formally appointed in 1981, following the abrupt dismissal of Jacquelyn Mattfeld. At just 31 years old, Futter emerged as both the youngest leader of a major American college and a figure of institutional recalibration. A Barnard alum and Columbia-trained lawyer, she was deeply embedded in the College’s governance structures, having served as both student and full trustee. Her presidency marked a turn toward administrative consolidation, strategic diplomacy, and reputational management, shaped by the imperatives of institutional survival in a rapidly shifting academic landscape.

Futter’s tenure unfolded under the looming question of Barnard’s relationship to Columbia. In her first address to the community following her inauguration, she asserted “we cannot and shall not abandon our role as an independent women's college.” A proposed agreement, championed by Futter and Columbia’s Fritz Stern, would have revised the ad hoc faculty appointment process, integrated elements of the Core Curriculum, and established upper-level cross-University courses. These plans were derailed in 1981 following the release of the Breslow Report, which concluded that Columbia College could not survive without admitting women, but that Barnard could survive a coeducational Columbia. This report, driven by Columbia’s anxieties about its standing in the Ivy League, prompted the University to unilaterally reverse course, abandoning what had been a nearly finalized agreement. She later reiterated to faculty, “The decision was not for Barnard to make.”

In 1983, when Columbia College announced its decision to admit women for the first time, the existential status of Barnard came under renewed scrutiny. Rather than confronting this shift as a threat to Barnard’s distinct mission, Futter responded by negotiating a revised affiliation agreement that preserved Barnard’s legal independence while formalizing cross-registration, faculty appointments, and degree conferrals. Though widely hailed as a diplomatic victory, the agreement also underscored the increasingly asymmetric relationship between the two institutions, binding Barnard more tightly to Columbia’s administrative and financial rhythms.

Within the College, Futter presided over a period of infrastructural and curricular transformation. She initiated a major capital campaign and authorized the construction of a new residence hall, Centennial Hall (now Sulzberger Hall) prior to securing the necessary funds, a calculated risk that signaled institutional ambition and a confidence in Barnard’s long-term viability. Under her leadership, the College adopted a faculty-recommended maternity and parental leave policy in 1985 and launched a comprehensive curricular review, which culminated in the creation of the First-Year Seminar Program and a heightened emphasis on quantitative reasoning. These initiatives reflected a broader shift toward academic standardization and market-readiness, aligning Barnard with national trends in liberal arts reform.

Critics noted the emergence of a more hierarchical, corporate model of leadership, one that privileged strategic alliance over ideological clarity. Futter’s emphasis on institutional diplomacy was not without its internal dissonances. In 1985, as part of the Columbia-wide anti-apartheid movement, over one hundred Barnard students joined the blockade of Hamilton Hall, demanding full divestment from corporations operating in apartheid South Africa. When Columbia moved to discipline three Barnard students, the Barnard chapter of the Coalition for a Free South Africa (CFSA) publicly called on the administration to clarify its position. In an open letter published in The Columbia Spectator in April, the students criticized President Futter’s silence and lack of transparency, citing her inability to articulate the College’s stance on either disciplinary proceedings or its own investment practices. “Barnard’s silence on both of these issues is unacceptable,” they wrote, insisting that the College, if unwilling to support the protest, should at least protect its students from being singled out. The letter, signed by 85 Barnard students, captured a growing frustration with the administration.

Unbeknownst to students, Barnard’s Board had voted to divest in May, but the decision was not announced until September, timed to align with Columbia’s own divestment. Futter framed the move as grounded in “fundamental principles of human decency,” yet students and faculty noted the administration’s delayed disclosure and refusal to acknowledge activist pressure. The episode revealed the administration’s preference for backchannel negotiation over collective engagement, and exemplified a broader shift in institutional governance: one that increasingly viewed student activism as a public relations liability rather than a democratic force.

Futter stepped down in 1993 to lead the American Museum of Natural History, where she would remain for three decades. Her legacy at Barnard is one of disciplined preservation: she safeguarded the College’s autonomy not through confrontation, but through the careful architecture of affiliation. It was a form of power exercised quietly, through legal precision, financial calculus, and institutional restraint, leaving behind a Barnard that was stronger, more solvent, and arguably more constrained.