At the Age of 30, Ellen Futter, Esq. Became President of Barnard College and Youngest College Pres.

In 1981, Wall Street lawyer Ellen Futter took a leave from Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy where she practiced corporate law, to become the acting president of Barnard College for a year, after which she was appointed to the role on a permanent basis where she served for 13 years (until 1993). At the time of her appointment, she was the youngest appointee to a campus presidency of any major American college…actually two months shy of her 30th birthday.

President Futter got a glimpse of college governance in 1971 as served as the student representative to the Barnard Board of Trustees. In 1972 she was elected to full membership as an alumna on the Board to complete the term of the Hon. Arthur Goldberg, former Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and she was re-elected in 1975.

Her appointment was met with surprise, not only because the faculty learned about it from the New York Times, but also because the four previous presidents of Barnard had been academics with extensive higher education administrative and/or teaching experience, neither of which Futter possessed. As was explained, the Trustees needed someone they could rely on quickly at the time as the faculty had been split over the firing of President Mattfeld and the Board lacked confidence in senior faculty members at the time. As discussed in May it Please the Campus: Lawyers Leading Higher Education, there is a growing number of members of campus boards of trustees who are being appointed as college and university presidents (most often of the campus there are serving as a board member) precisely because of both the detailed knowledge they possess about the business and operations of the campus, and because they are known to the board and therefore there is a level of confidence and trust not easily given to an outsider during the search process.

During Futter’s tenure, she worked with then Columbia University President Michael Sovern (one of her former law professors), who was also a lawyer, on the issue of co-education, and as a result, Columbia agreed to admit women in 1983 and they created the Columbia-Barnard Consortium enabling, among other things, Barnard athletes to compete in the NCAA Division I and the Ivy League, and Barnard to preserve its independence. It was in fact this idea of a merger between the two schools that derailed President Mattfeld’s tenure.

According to the Barnard College Leadership webpage, among her other accomplishments, “She launched a major fundraising campaign, accepted the recommendation of a faculty committee on a maternity- and parental-leave policy in 1985, and in a most daring decision, embarked on the construction of a new dormitory — Centennial Hall at its opening in 1988, renamed Sulzberger Hall in 1991 — for which Barnard did not yet have the funds. Among her accomplishments was the launch of a sweeping curricular review that led to the creation of the First-Year Seminar Program and greater attention to quantitative reasoning. She was a provocateur for change, advancing the institution while staying true to its history and its mission.”

President Futter resigned to become president of the American Museum of Natural History, a position she held for 30 years until 2022.

Ellen Futter is a graduate of Columbia Law School.

Lawyer Robert N. Funk Made a Career of Serving as an Interim President at Four Institutions

Colleges and Universities turn to interim president appointments when there is an unexpected departure of the president creating an urgent need to identify someone quickly who can lead and manage the institution. Sometimes, while the campus then engages in a national search to find a new leader, the community may develop a comfort with the interim leader they know, and it is not uncommon for that person to be appointed to the post permanently (when they are candidate for the position).

Lawyer Robert N. Funk served as interim president of four different schools following a successful nine-year presidency at Cornish College of the Arts (1985-1994). When he was retiring from Cornish College, Funk placed his name on a registry of former higher education officials interested in working as interim presidents or deans.

Funk was subsequently named interim president at Sierra Nevada Collee in 1995, St. Edwards University in 1998, Villa Julie College (now Stevenson University) in 1999 and Hood College in 2000. Funk stayed at Hood College upon the appointment of a new president in 2001, serving as dean of the faculty and later as provost. In 2010 he left for an interim vice president of academic affairs position at Gwynedd-Mercy College.

In total, 74 known lawyers served as interim presidents of a college or university. Twenty-seven of these interim lawyer presidents were subsequently appointed as presidents at the campus where they served as interim. Eight of the interim lawyer presidents left those campuses to become president somewhere else.

Prior to his run as president and successive interim presidencies, Robert Funk was an academic vice president and dean at Stephens College and held both faculty and administrative positions at Stanford University. In addition to a JD degree from the University at Oregon, Funk earned a PhD in higher education administration from Stanford University. Before embarking on a career in higher education, Funk served in the military in both the counterintelligence corps and the Judge Advocates General Corps of the U.S. Army. He also worked in private practice as an attorney in Pendleton, OR.

For a more information on May it Please the Campus: Lawyers Leading Higher Education, see https://lawyersleadinghighered.com

Long-time High Ed Leader and Lawyer W. Ellis Arnold III Announces Retirement as President of Hendrix

W. Ellis Arnold III ’79, elected the 12th President of Hendrix College (Conway, Arkansas) in November 2019 (taking office in December 2019), announced his retirement in June 2023. He previously served as president of Lambuth University in Jackson, TN. Both colleges are affiliated with the United Methodist Church.

Discussed in more detail in May it Please the Campus: Lawyers Leading Higher Education, about 27% of the presidents of religiously affiliated colleges and universities in the last decade are lawyers. The number of lawyer presidents at religiously affiliated schools tripled from the 1990s to the 2000s, and more than doubled from the 2000s to the 2010s. There are many reasons for this upward trend, not the least of which is the delicate balance of compliance with federal and state regulations and the desire in some cases to hold to conflicting deeply held religious values and beliefs.

During a November 9, 2022 presentation sponsored by the Steel Center at Hendrix College, President Arnold, he described how he was recruited to Hendrix as a career move in 1990. Following his graduation from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law in 1982, he practiced law in Little Rock. Then-Hendrix President Dr. Joe B. Hatcher asked Arnold to serve as Vice President for Development and College Relations and lead the College’s church relations, communications, fundraising, and marketing, in addition to serving as General Counsel. Within a year of his arrival on campus (at age 33), President Hatcher announced he was leaving. When Ellis Arnold left to go to Lambuth University – he felt what that school articulated that it needed – he had. He has also served as acting president of Hendrix on two occasions.

President Arnold finished $150M campaign and the endowment soared to record levels of over $230M before he announced he was stepping down. The two things that were most important to him were the faculty and the residential experience for the students. When asked what his favorite role was – he said his first one working with President Hatcher – he never felt he was going to work a single day. He also noted that when the Associated Colleges of the South invited them join and then the National Collegiate Athletic Association invited Hendrix as well, these were game changers to help equate Hendrix with other quality liberal arts schools, helping them to recruit more regionally.

President Arnold’s retirement next year will conclude a successful 33-year career in education leadership, including 17 years as a President.