Emily Kernan Rafferty’s love affair with the Metropolitan Museum of Art began when she entered into the field of development in 1976, Nicky Stout Chapin ’52 noted in her introduction of the speaker during this year’s Nicky Chapin Lecture. One of five sisters who attended Chapin, as did her mother, Ms. Rafferty was initially interested in a career in arts education. She ended up taking a position at the Met as a fundraising administrator, which was the first position available.
As Ms. Rafferty told the girls, she believes she was a natural fit for the position of vice president for development several years later because she took advantage of any and all of the opportunities presented to her at the Met. Her myriad of experiences enabled her to rise through the ranks at the institution where she has now worked for nearly 40 years. “Don’t just dismiss something,” she said, referring to her willingness to taking on new tasks at the Met. “Go for it.” For the past 10 years, Ms. Rafferty has served as president of the museum where she oversees over 1,500 employees in areas like finance, legal affairs, development and government relations, and serves as an ex-officio member of the museum's board.
Before joining the Met, Ms. Rafferty (Class of 1967) said that it was a course on world religions that opened her eyes. “Going anywhere east of Europe, you’ll see a very different patrimony,” she said. In collecting and preserving 5,000 years of mankind’s greatest creations at the Met, she said one of her proudest moments as an employee came from being able to open the museum’s doors the day after the attacks on the World Trade Center. It was in response to that openness, she said, that visitors flocked to the museum. “Never forget the power of what humanity needs,” Ms. Rafferty said.
While discussing the mores of collecting art, Ms. Rafferty described how appropriate methods for collecting have shifted in the past century. “There have been questions of what art belongs to us,” she said. Citing the Euphronios krater that the Met repatriated to Italy several years ago, however, Ms. Rafferty noted that some results have been positive. The goodwill from the return of that bowl to Italy, for example, has resulted in other exchanges of art with the Met.
Ms. Rafferty spoke movingly about the risk of destruction that the conflict in Syria and Iraq poses to priceless artifacts. Times of war often cause devastation to ancient sites that house art, she explained. She and her colleagues watch these situations closely and continuously and are heartened by the fact that the ability to communicate online has greatly improved the museum’s ability to act quickly on behalf of their staff to preserve art in tumultuous times.
In admiration of Ms. Rafferty’s role as the first woman in the Museum’s history to be appointed to vice president, and later president, a student asked Ms. Rafferty if she had ever experienced gender discrimination in the workplace. Ms. Rafferty said she had never felt discriminated against, but urged the students to speak up if they ever suffer from discrimination and to use the legal channels in place. “You will get where you’re going,” she told them with confidence.