If you’d known Emily K. Rafferty in grade school, you’d likely have spotted her raising money for a local art fair or knitting an endless scarf that she hoped would warm a child who needed it. “Those were the kinds of things that were at my root,” she says. Rafferty has stayed true to that path, joining the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 1976 and rising to president. In spring 2015, she stepped down after a decade in one of the most powerful positions in the art world.

During her leadership of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Emily K. Rafferty boosted attendance to record levels. She also had the opportunity to meet with celebrities and dignitaries, such as Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Lopez. Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

“I never considered the profit sector,” says Rafferty (’71), a native New Yorker who used to roller-skate past the museum on her way home from school. “I was always interested in service.”

Rafferty started her career at the nation’s largest art museum as a fund-raising administrator in 1976; in 2005, she became the Met’s first female president. Philippe de Montebello, then-director of the museum, commented at the time of her election that Rafferty had “devoted nearly her entire working lifetime to the Met, fully understands its complexities, yet possesses the inventiveness and energy to forge new and better ways to help it safeguard its preeminence into the 21st century.”

As president, Rafferty oversaw almost every aspect of the museum’s operations, from the smooth running of construction projects to legal affairs. It’s a wide-ranging job; one day she may have been coordinating health plans for 2,200 staffers and the next hobnobbing with the likes of Oprah Winfrey, First Lady Michelle Obama, or Prince Charles at a fund-raiser or other high-profile event.

The work, she says, “has called on my personal DNA—love of people of all kinds, and a desire to have them engage in the Met.”

The Met, whose vast holdings include masterpieces by Van Gogh, Picasso, and Dürer, has been open since 1870. With some two million pieces of art under its careful watch, the museum’s collections span nearly 6,000 years of human history: it’s home to the world’s oldest piano, a suit of Henry VIII’s armor, and an intact Egyptian temple.

In the last three years, attendance has topped six million annually—the highest since the museum began tracking those statistics in the 1970s. The achievement is hard-won at a time when arts institutions are facing serious financial challenges.

The recession was one of them. US arts organizations started to bounce back in 2012, according to the 2014 National Arts Index. But by then, some museums had been pushed to the edge, selling precious works (New York’s National Academy Museum sold two paintings for $13.5 million to cover operating costs) or closing (the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles was saved only by a last-minute donation). Support from the federal government remains modest, and the percentage of households contributing to the arts has dropped annually since 2007, to 8.6 percent.

Rafferty (far left) with Diana, Princess of Wales (second from right). Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Fortunately for the Met, Rafferty is known as one of the art world’s most effective fund-raisers. Under her leadership, the museum regularly made the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual list of America’s most successful money-raising groups, edging out many other museums and arts organizations. In 2014, it raised more than $186 million.

But Rafferty’s impact wasn’t just seen in the arrival of big checks. She launched attendance-boosting initiatives including “Holiday Mondays,” which opened the museum on federal holidays for the first time in more than 50 years. She kept the Met accessible and fresh by helping to oversee the creation of a website and major renovations to areas including the Islamic Galleries and American Wing. In 2014, the museum launched its flagship smartphone app, new multilingual online resources, and a partnership with Khan Academy, the web-based educational organization.

Rafferty’s time at the Met confirmed for her an insight she gained in world religion classes at BU, where she studied African and Middle Eastern history and minored in art history: “The most important thing we can do is to understand and be sensitive to and respectful of other cultures.” Museums, she says, have a role to play in promoting cultural understanding. “I think museums are increasingly going to need to recognize their global impact because of the internet and the ease of travel.”

The Met is helping fellow institutions reexamine their purpose in today’s world. At the Met’s inaugural Global Museum Leaders Colloquium in 2014, the message was that a museum must not merely be a preserver of valuable objects, but “a public resource: a place of education, community building, and in many countries, an agent of social change and reconciliation,” according to the colloquium report. “I think museums have that opportunity and responsibility,” Rafferty says, “to understand that they have the capacity to make a difference in people’s lives.”

Rafferty with Cuban President Fidel Castro. Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

To survive long enough to make a difference, though, both old and new museums need to get their mission straight. It needs to be strong, Rafferty says, as well as clear to everyone—from the trustees to the security guards. “You’re not just building a building,” she says. “What is the collection going to be about? What’s your ability to get the collection in there?” Once established, a museum must perpetually renew itself and its mission, while realistically assessing running costs. Partnerships—with schools and universities, art centers, corporations, and individuals—will become more important, Rafferty believes. Publicity is also crucial; the Met has devoted significant energy to its website and apps. Reaching people isn’t “a perfect art; we struggle with it all the time,” she says. But the museum is making great strides in broadening its audience, she says. About a third of the current audience is under age 35, and nearly 40 percent is international.

Rafferty hasn’t announced what’s in store for her after the Met—“I honestly don’t have a plan,” she told arts&sciences before she stepped down—but would like to apply her knowledge on a broader scale, “potentially in the international community.”

She remains optimistic about the future of the Met and other arts institutions. “There’s huge potential out there for museums in the future,” says Rafferty. “There always has been, and I think each generation decides how that’s going to flourish.”

Emily Rafferty received a 2014 College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award, the highest honor CAS grants its alums. To submit a nomination for 2015, visit bu.edu/cas/distinguished-alumni-awards.