Fair Mindedness
Some administrators will take all the credit they can get, or get away with, for the accomplishments of their time in office. Administrators of the first rank give credit where it is due, all along the line. Said Dr. Johnson, “I feel that in this aspect of the work [the indispensable task of finding donors for the sculptures] we are in a very admirable position. Mrs. Vanamee [Secretary Helen Vanamee, Acting Director during RUJ’s brief absence as U.S Ambassador to Italy] has succeeded to a very fortunate degree in enlisting the interests of the donors of the busts now promised.”
Indeed, Johnson was one of the first officials of the Hall to say that “we can no longer consider the fame of women from the point of view of sex,” and that NYU “should come in line with other leading institutions in a a matter of this sort.”
NYU was not “out of line” in this matter. It was very much “in line” with most other institutions of higher education. For years, Columbia, for one, had a Mens Faculty Club and a “separate but equal” Womens Faculty Club, which weren’t merged until the nineteen seventies, when the women’s club was still separate, but superior in cuisine. Most clubs throughout the nation were make preserves. So also most executive positions.