A Promotion, An Appointment
And A Commencement:
Robert Hampton
Makes His Presidential Debut At York

By Shams Tarek

This week was one of great change and great promise for York College, Southeast Queens’ only institution of higher learning and the younger of the borough’s two four-year public colleges.

Just two days before its 33rd annual, May 30 commencement ceremony, CUNY officials introduced York and surrounding community leaders to the college’s new president, an Indiana-bred expert on violence in African American families who talks in sports metaphors about the virtues of urban education.

York’s interim president, Dr. Russell K. Hotzler, was promoted the same day to a University-wide position, pulling him out of the borough for the first time since he came here to help an embattled Queens College three years ago.

Both men will start their new jobs on July 21.

After a summer of transition, York will have its first permanent president in 13 months, and Hotzler, a South Ozone Park native, will run a three-to-five-year project that—if the fiscal gods smile upon him—may lead to his running a new CUNY campus on Manhattan’s Governor’s Island by the end of the decade.

CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein introduced York’s new president, 55-year-old University of Maryland dean Dr. Robert L. Hampton, to a crowd of community and College leaders on May 28, a day after he was voted in by the board of trustees.

Hampton, a scholar who revealed a sense of humor with a few self-deprecating jokes, said he was excited about his new post.

“I’m really excited to be here,” Hampton said while sitting next to Goldstein at a press conference at the College.  “I would jump up and shout, but I realize that’s not very dignified.”

The search for York’s new president started six months ago with CUNY sending out about 1,000 invitation letters to prospective candidates.

The search committee, consisting of CUNY trustees and York students, faculty and administrators, narrowed its focus to less than a dozen candidates this year, and invited three—including Hampton—to visit the campus this spring.

One of the candidates, Dr. Paul Wong, dropped out of the search after taking a job elsewhere and cancelled his scheduled April 1 visit.  After both Hampton and Pace University liberal arts dean Dr. Gail Dinter-Gottlieb visited the campus, the latter accepted a presidency at Acadia University, a 4,000-student school in Novia Scotia, leaving Hampton the last candidate standing.

CUNY Vice Chancellor for University Relations  Jay Hershenson said Hampton wasn’t chosen by the process of elimination but because he was CUNY’s most desirable candidate, and said the fact that Hampton’s opponents both withdrew because they accepted offers elsewhere is a sign that the York search targeted high-quality professionals in high demand.

New not only to York College but to the City, too, Hampton said his top priority right now is to get familiar his new environment.

“I place listening as a top priority because I need to learn,” Hampton told a crowd of York faculty, staff and students, describing himself as a “charismatic listener.”  “I need to understand who you are,  I need to understand the things that make you proud to be affiliated with the York College community and the things that you see on the horizon that will propel this institution to the next tier of excellence.”

The biggest hurdles he’ll face, Hampton said, will be “some obvious fiscal problems and challenges before us.”

At another point, Hampton said that “We’re here to excel, not here just to maintain.”

Hampton, a first-generation college student, praised York as a source of opportunity for Southeast Queens students.

“I know that York is about changing lives,” Hampton said.  “It’s important for young people, returning adults and society in general.  I’m going to be listening to people who are going to talk about how we can enhance the human capital that’s represented in this room and elsewhere; how we can enhance the human capacity to learn, to grow, to develop.”

When asked how he’ll try to transform York from a regional college for Southeast Queens to a school that could draw students from across the city, Hampton said he’d like to emphasize York’s unique strengths—mainly its academic and workforce partnerships with the FDA and Port Authority—to bring the school to mainstream acceptance “five years from now, 10 years from now.”

Most people at this week’s introduction to Hampton, not knowing much about the man, were reluctant to voice opinions about him.  York’s faculty dining room was filled with the electric energy of expectation, like that at a product unveiling or an auto show, and most people were excited about the prospect of Hampton building upon York’s current strengths.

F. Carlisle Towery, president of the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, a local business consortium, was one of the admirers.

“I think it’s wonderful,” Towery said of Hampton’s appointment.  “I appreciate his remarks about the FDA and the synergy potential with the Aviation Institute.”

Goldstein said Hampton is “truly student-centered in everything that he’s done.”

Valerie Beal, the CUNY trustee that led the search committee that zeroed in on Hampton, said “I am confident that of all the candidates we looked at, York College now has the best person to lead it forward.”