American administrator and attorney, the ninth president of Barnard College for Women, served 13 years. She was also president of the American Museum of Natural History beginning in 1993. A self-described doer rather than observer, she excelled more as an administrator than an academic, and in 1980 held the distinction of being the youngest chief executive of a major American college. A trim five feet two inches tall, she has dark hair and dark eyes. She commonly puts in 12-hour work days.
Ellen Victoria Futter was the daughter of a lawyer and top-level executive with Allied Chemical Corporation and his wife, Joan. Shortly after Futter’s birth, the family moved to Port Washington. Following her high school graduation in 1967, she enrolled at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and transferred to Barnard College. She thrived in the more close-knit academic community, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In her senior year, she was chosen to be a student representative to the college’s board of trustees.
After spending a summer working at Newsweek magazine, she found she was more interested in participation and initiation than observation, and after getting her A.B. degree magna cum laude, in 1971, she entered Columbia University’s School of Law. She received her J.D. degree in 1974, then passed the New York State Bar exam and joined a Wall Street corporate law firm.
In July 1980, she took a year’s leave of absence from her job for a temporary appointment as acting president of Barnard College. Within days of taking office, she had opened discussions with the president of Columbia University for Barnard to have an affiliate role with Columbia. She was named president of Barnard on 5/06/1981, and the ongoing debate over the Barnard-Columbia relationship heated up. In January 1982, a seven-year pact was signed between Futter and Columbia’s president, and Columbia began to admit women students while Barnard remained an independent women’s college.
She married attorney John Shutkin on 8/25/1974 and they have a daughter, Anne Victoria who was born on her mother’s birthday in 1981.
Link to Wikipedia biography