Committee for CUNY Future Says: Reappoint Exemplary CUNY Trustees

WASHINGTON, DC—The Committee for the CUNY Future has called on New York governor George Pataki and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to reappoint two key City University of New York trustees. The seats of the two men, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld and Randy Mastro, have been in limbo since June.

Distinguished faculty, alumni, parents, and citizens first formed the Committee for the CUNY Future to fight for remediation reform at the City University of New York in 1998. Remediation reform occurred shortly thereafter.

Since then, as it wrote to Pataki and Bloomberg, “CUNY has increased its private fundraising, stepped up its academic standards, and established a flourishing Honors College.” The Committee credited both Wiesenfeld and Mastro for playing “a key role in CUNY’s renaissance.”

Pataki originally appointed Wiesenfeld to the CUNY board and controls whether he is reappointed. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani appointed Mastro; Bloomberg now controls whether Mastro is reappointed. Their terms expired at the end of June, but they remain on the board until new formal appointments are made.

Earlier this summer, reporting by the New York Sun and New York Post helped scuttle Pataki’s plan to nominate Fernando Mateo of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers—who lacks even a high school diploma—to Wiesenfeld’s seat. No action has been taken since.

The Committee’s letters are available online or upon request from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, which coordinated the Committee.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni is a national education nonprofit dedicated to academic freedom, academic quality, and accountability. ACTA has a network of trustees and alumni around the country including those from the City University of New York. ACTA has issued numerous reports on higher education including A Failure to Set High Standards: CUNY’s General Education Requirements, How Many Ward Churchills?, Intellectual Diversity: Time for Action, The Hollow Core, and Losing America’s Memory: Historical Illiteracy in the 21st Century.