The Board of Trustees of The City University of New York voted unanimously on Feb. 13 to appoint Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, an accomplished scholar, teacher, administrator, and public servant who has been president of Queens College since 2014, as the eighth Chancellor of CUNY. He will be both the first Latino and minority educator to head the University. He will assume the post on May 1.
An innovative leader, Chancellor-designate Matos Rodríguez, 56, has drawn national recognition as a trailblazer in higher education. He enhanced Queens College’s reputation for excellence and propelled the school to the highest echelon in college social-mobility rankings.
As president of CUNY’s Eugenio María de Hostos Community College, the post he held immediately prior to his appointment at Queens College, he gained acclaim for engineering a double-digit increase in the school’s retention rate, leading Hostos to become a finalist for the prestigious Aspen Best Community College prize in 2015. He is one of a select few U.S. educators who has served as president of both a baccalaureate and community college.
“Felo’s deep roots in CUNY, combined with his rich experience as a scholar and as leader of both senior and community colleges, make him uniquely suited to lead the University forward, keeping it positioned as the standard-bearer for quality and access in public higher education,” said William C. Thompson Jr., chair of the CUNY Board of Trustees and leader of the Chancellor Search Committee.
“I am immensely proud to have risen through the University’s ranks and am deeply honored to now have the opportunity to lead an institution I love and treasure,” said Matos Rodríguez. “I will endeavor to elevate to new heights CUNY’s legacy as the paradigm of a people’s University.”
Matos Rodríguez holds a B.A. from Yale University, where he was a cum laude graduate, and a doctorate in history from Columbia University. A scholar and authority on the history of women in the Caribbean, he is a recipient of the Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association and the author of Women and Urban Life in Nineteenth-Century San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1820–1862; and editor of several books, including A Nation of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out.
Currently the board chair of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), Matos Rodríguez has used his extensive regional and national networks and board memberships to advance Queens College’s visibility and recognition. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an Aspen Institute Ascend Fellow. He currently serves on the boards of Phipps Houses, the United Way of New York City, the TIAA Hispanic Advisory Council and the Research Alliance for New York City Schools.
Matos Rodríguez left CUNY for several years in 2005, returning to his native Puerto Rico where he worked one year as head adviser on Health and Social Welfare to the governor of Puerto Rico. In 2006, he was named Secretary of the Department of Family Services, a post he held for nearly two years in which he managed an annual budget of $2.3 billion and oversaw nearly 11,000 employees across 104 regional offices.
His appointment follows the recommendation of a 14-member search committee of CUNY trustees, college presidents, faculty, students, and civic leaders led by Chairman Thompson. The committee was assisted in its search by Isaacson Miller, a leading executive search firm.
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