Kingsborough Celebrates Investiture
President Suri Duitch was formally installed as the eighth president of Kingsborough Community College by City University of New York (CUNY) Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez during an investiture ceremony on the South Brooklyn campus Thursday, May 7.
Kingsborough Celebrates Investiture of 8th President Dr. Suri Duitch
President Suri Duitch was formally installed as the eighth president of Kingsborough Community College by City University of New York (CUNY) Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez during an investiture ceremony on the South Brooklyn campus Thursday, May 7.
“For more than 60 years, this incredible institution has been a gateway to opportunity, and now, Kingsborough has a president whose life, values, and vision, embody that mission, and align with the university's purpose as a pathway of upward mobility,” Chancellor Matos Rodríguez said. “And so, we are incredibly proud of you, for seeing the big picture so clearly, and for making every decision meaningful, for both students and the entire community.”
A two-time CUNY alum, with a master’s in social work from Hunter College and a Ph.D. in urban education from the CUNY Graduate Center, President Duitch has devoted nearly her entire career to CUNY and the city and students it serves, first in the Office of Academic Affairs, then as cofounder and program development director of CUNY’s School of Professional Studies, before returning to CUNY’s central office where she also launched, among other initiatives, the CUNY Service Corps, a paid experiential learning program for students that also supports New York City nonprofits.
She left New York and CUNY in 2016 to become dean of the School of Professional Advancement at Louisiana’s Tulane University, a role she credits for supplementing her CUNY experience with hands-on, day-to-day operational experience. She returned in January 2024, to Kingsborough, as its interim president. She was appointed president by CUNY Board of Trustees last May, after a national search.
President Duitch’s remarks were part personal narrative, part civic argument, and a full-throated rallying cry for Kingsborough to meet a moment when AI disruption, economic uncertainty, attacks on immigration and diversity and political divisiveness are leaving not only students but also the communities who care for them, unsure about the future.
“It can be hard to know what to say to our students about their prospects for the future when there is so much uncertainty and even hostility surrounding us and especially surrounding many of them,” she said.
Kingsborough’s response to this uncertainty should rely on two guiding values, she said: empathy and ambition--empathy for the complex realities they face, and an ambition that matches its students’ ambitions for the opportunities and outcomes they deserve.
That approach, she said, requires strengthening transfer pathways, expanding career preparation and experiential learning opportunities, and ensuring students gain the skills and have established the networks needed to succeed in a rapidly changing economy.
“Most of all, it means staying true to our fundamental commitment to provide each of our students with skills and credentials and with a grounding in the liberal arts and in the sciences,” President Duitch said. “This education in the fundamentals bolsters our value, not only as workers, but our depth as human beings, and as participants in civil society. Accessible education made America great and will continue to do so.”
She thanked her family, the Kingsborough students who inspire her work, Kingsborough and CUNY colleagues, elected officials and the business and community leaders who support the college’s mission, many of whom were in the audience.
President Duitch was introduced by two students, biology major Faruq Anjorin ‘26 and business of fashion major Fotima Makhmudova ’26, and Cass Conrad, executive director of the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation, before Chancellor Matos Rodríguez took the stage.
“Her return to New York, I think, is a homecoming,” said Conrad, who worked with Duitch at CUNY’s Office of Academic Affairs. “Not just to a city she knows deeply, but to a public higher education system that she helped to shape. The question of who gets to go to college and what happens when institutions take that question seriously has been an underpinning of her professional career,” Conrad said.
The ceremony, emceed by alumna Khalilah Webster who is now executive director of New York City-based Open Door Arts-in-Education Project, drew elected officials, CUNY leaders, community partners, alumni, and supporters from across New York City and the university system, including CUNY Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost Alicia Alvero, several CUNY college presidents: Hunter College President Nancy Cantor, Guttman Community College President Elizabeth de León Bhargava, Bronx Community College President Larry Johnson, College of Staten Island President Timothy Lynch, Medgar Evers College President Patricia Ramsey, and Queens College President Frank Wu; Kingsborough Community College Foundation Board Chair Dr. Kwesi W. Blackman, former Kingsborough Community College President Regina Peruggi and former Hostos Community College President David Gómez.
Find all photos from the Presidential Investiture here.
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