President Howard Lapidus

Howard Lapidus served with distinction at Queensborough Community College for more than 35 years. Over the decades he experienced a historical period in higher education. Lapidus, a CUNY graduate himself began his career at CUNY in 1968 as Assistant General Counsel for the University. It was an extraordinary time as CUNY was undergoing tumultuous change as the result of student protests over the Vietnam War. In addition the demands for Open Admissions resulted in its arrival in 1970, five years earlier than scheduled. The University was also dealing with the implementation of collective bargaining. As a result, then President Kurt Schmeller asked Lapidus to come to Queensborough as Special Counsel to him in 1970 to help address these issues impacting the college community. He soon found himself serving as College Labor Designee, College Affirmative Action Officer, College Title IX Officer, College Records Officer and co-chaired the committee that drafted the initial Queensborough Governance Plan.  

Howard Lapidus was appointed an Asst. Dean in 1972 and over the ensuing decades became the Dean of Staff Relations, Dean of Administration, and the Senior Vice President. Twice he co-chaired the Middle States Self-Study Steering Committee at the College and as a prelude to the 1990 report he formulated and spearheaded a plan to enable the College to establish for the first time a Student Union building at the campus. The new Student Union replaced the student cafeteria which moved to where the college bookstore was in the basement of the Humanities building, the bookstore expanded and moved to a building at the end of the main parking lot which was used a student theater which then moved to a new location near the college main entrance.  During his tenure Queensborough established the only community college lock-box payment system in CUNY and the first college on-line registration in CUNY.

Howard Lapidus was appointed interim President at Queensborough in 1999 and served in that capacity through the 1999-2000 academic year.  He presided at a roundtable on The Role of the Interim President at the 1999 Middle States annual meeting. During his presidency he secured funding that allowed every faculty member to have access to computer usage in their own offices. In 2000 incoming President Eduardo Marti asked Lapidus to stay on as his deputy and Chief Operating Officer. In 2006, Lapidus authored the Long Range Plan for Queensborough entitled Realizing the Possibilities which was approved by the College Academic Senate.

Howard Lapidus after retiring in 2006, and teaching as an adjunct Full Professor in the graduate higher education program at Hofstra University was asked by the CUNY Executive Vice Chancellor to return to CUNY in 2007 to help create a new program for entering Community College students.  Housed at Queensborough he served as the deputy to the consultant creating ASAP (Accelerated Studies in Associate Programs). He developed an outline for academic advisement for the program and was able to help provide free textbooks due to the generous support of Barnes and Noble and to negotiate transit passes from the MTA. Lapidus who became a tenured Full Professor in 1975 continues to be a Professor Emeritus in the Business Dept. at Queensborough.

It would be difficult to overstate his contributions and achievements on behalf of Queensborough.