Ellen V. Futter, Doctor of Humane Letters
As the youngest ever president of a major college or university, you transformed Barnard and secured its future within Columbia University. In 1993 you moved to the presidency of the world’s largest museum of natural history and were charged by the chairman of its board to “brighten the [venerable] place up.” That you have done. The Rose Center, with its new Hayden Planetarium and new research program in astrophysics, is only the most dramatic example of how you have freshly engaged the public with the museum’s hundreds of scientists and tens of millions of artifacts. You have also launched the Institute for Comparative Genomics, with its promise of biomedical advances. You have moved the work of the Museum even further beyond its walls through the work of the National Center for Science Literacy, Education, and Technology, launched with the largest NASA grant ever made to a museum. At the same time, a series of relevant, path-breaking, traveling exhibitions (including those on the genomic revolution, Einstein, and today’s Vietnam) have developed broad scientific interest and proficiency across the country, so that the museum, perhaps for the first time, can be said to live up to its name of The American Museum of Natural History.
I hereby declare you recipient of the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, entitled to all the rights, honors, and privileges appertaining thereto.
June 6, 2004
Morton Owen Schapiro
President of the College