Struve was a highly successful administrator who brought fame to Yerkes Observatory and rebuilt the astronomy department of the University of Chicago. In particular, he gradually renewed the scientific staff, dismissing stagnated permanent researchers who were not making significant contributions to science but were occupying the faculty positions. The process was difficult. Struve used to arrive first and leave last from the observatory, taking notes on working hours of staff which he then used in his bureaucratic moves. In replacement, he hired several young and talented researchers who later became world-famous scientists. Those included Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983), Gerard Kuiper (protagonist of the famous Kuiper Prize), Bengt Strömgren, Gerhard Herzberg (Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1971), William Wilson Morgan and Jesse L. Greenstein. After World War II, he also invited a number of leading European researchers, such as Pol Swings, Jan Oort (father of radio astronomy), Marcel Minnaert, H. C. van der Hulst and Albrecht Unsöld. As most of them were foreigners, their appointment met strong opposition from the science officials for various reasons, such as taking jobs from Americans during the Great Depression. India-born Chandrasekhar, who spent a month in the Soviet Union in 1934, was also suspected of Communist connections. Struve spent extraordinary efforts defending and justifying each case, and those efforts paid off in building the scientific school at Yerkes and Chicago University. For example, Chandrasekhar spent his entire career as a scientist and administrator at Chicago University, assisting Struve and eventually replacing him as president of the American Astronomical Society (from 1949) and as the Editor in Chief of the "Astrophysical Journal".