CUNY York and LaGuardia receive interim presidents

Students in the hallways of LaGuardia Community College Photo courtesy of LaGuardia Community College.

By Victoria Merlino

CUNY Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez announced the appointment of new interim presidents to York College and LaGuardia Community College on Thursday, temporarily replacing two long-serving presidents at both schools as the university system seeks new administrators to fill the roles.

Paul Arcario, most recently the provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at LaGuardia, was named interim president of LaGuardia. Arcario entered LaGuardia in 1988 as an ESL faculty member, rising to become the chairperson of the Academic ESL Program by 1994. He became an assistant dean for the college in 1998. He succeeds former president Gail Mellow, who announced she was retiring from the post earlier this year. 

Berenecea Johnson Eanes was appointed interim president of York College by Matos Rodríguez. Eanes is also not a stranger to CUNY, serving six years at John Jay College of Criminal Justice as vice president of student affairs, though her most recent position was vice president for the Division of Student Affairs at California State University, Fullerton, where she served for seven years. Eanes has also held administrative positions at Hamilton College, Columbia University and Morehouse College.

If approved by the CUNY Board of Trustees, Eanes will succeed former York President Marcia Keizs, as Keizs leaves the post to become a professor at Bronx Community College.

“These individuals have already distinguished themselves for outstanding service, to say nothing of their versatility, ingenuity and longevity,” Matos Rodríguez said of the appointees, along with a batch of three other administrative candidates he also approved for work in the university system.