Monday, November 25, 2019

Women On the Rise

   

   Yes, they have risen all the way to the top in one of Washington DC's most treasured and historic institutions - the Smithsonian. All cheers, to find now how many  of the most fabled  buildings in the city have women directors.
    Count them: Air & Space, National Museum of American History, Museum of American Art  and the Renwick Gallery (teamed), the National Portrait Gallery, and National Gallery of Art (which is part federal and part private), the US Botanic Garden and director of the Smithsonian Gardens.
I( may have missed a few, but a program at the Portrait Gallery on 12/17 is highlighting such leadership with a public roundtable session honoring Women Leaders at the Smithsonian alone.
     Not only in renown government centers are women making their mark. The new chairman of the National Geographic Society, headquartered in down town DC, is Jean Case - first such female to hold the job. It's probably no accident that she comes out of the ever encroaching digital world, having had a hand in making AOL (remember that one?) popular in the early internet age.
      Note, too, the recent announcement that the"former CIA official" who has just been named second person in charge at the Smithsonian's central office is a woman. She is Meroe Park, the first deputy head to be named in many years and the first major hire under Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, founder of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.
       

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