Queens College’s new leader Frank Wu had sights set on CUNY
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New Queens College President Frank Wu is the 11th person to lead the school, and the first of Asian descent. Photo courtesy of Queens College
By Victoria Merlino
Queens College’s new president had his sights set on CUNY from the beginning.
“I wanted to be a president at Queens College because of what it stands for,” Frank Wu told the Eagle hours after being named the 11th president in QC history. Wu, an author and law professor, called public higher education the “engine of the American dream.”
The Detroit native will become the first person of Asian descent to lead the 83-year-old college when he takes over on July 1. He is currently a distinguished law professor at Hastings College in California. Prior to joining the Hastings faculty, he taught for a decade at Howard University, the nation’s leading historically black college/university.
Additionally, Wu regularly contributes op-eds to newspapers and websites across the country and is the author of “Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White” and co-author of “Race, Rights and Reparation: Law and the Japanese American Internment.”
Wu hopes to bring Queens College to the forefront of public education.
He outlined three goals for his tenure: to ensure the college is supported by the city and state, to increase the flow of private contributions, and to make sure that Queens takes pride in its four-year public school.
“Every great city has a great university. New York City has CUNY. Queens has Queens College as a part of CUNY, and it’s so important as a part of the foundation,” Wu said.
The upheaval brought on by COVID-19 has left CUNY scrambling to support its many low-income students, with the university putting classes on pause to distribute as many as 30,000 laptops to students who don’t have technological access at home, according to THE CITY.
Wu said he would work to support lower-income CUNY students in the future and keep Queens College affordable.
“The two priorities are making sure there’s access to technology and making sure the cost of higher education is not a barrier,” he said.
Though the COVID-19 pandemic has caused chaos across the CUNY system, Wu wants Queens College’s 18,500 students to know that the college is there to support them.
“You will make it through, we’re here for you, we’re going to make it through together,” he said.
Wu will take over from interim president William Tramontano, who replaced former President Felix Matos Rodriguez after Rodriguez was named CUNY chancellor last year.
Additional reporting by David Brand
