N.Y. Job May Go to Officer of Cal State

Yolanda T. Moses, vice president for academic affairs at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson, may be headed east to become president of City College of New York.

Moses, 46, an anthropologist, confirmed that she is one of two finalists for the job. If chosen, she would be the first woman to head the 146-year-old Harlem college, which is the oldest of the 21 campuses in the City University of New York system.

College officials refused to confirm or deny that CUNY Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds will recommend Moses for the post. However, the New York Daily News reported Friday that Reynolds, who was Cal State system chancellor before she was forced out in 1990 over a pay-raise controversy, will recommend Moses to the CUNY Board of Trustees at its meeting Monday.

The other finalist is George Campbell Jr., a Harlem physicist who heads a nonprofit corporation that helps minority students enter science and engineering fields.

Moses has been at Cal State Dominguez Hills since 1988. Before that, she was dean of the liberal arts department and an anthropology professor at Cal Poly Pomona.

A native Californian, Moses holds an undergraduate degree in sociology from Cal State San Bernardino and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in anthropology from UC Riverside. Her work as an anthropologist has covered topics ranging from the effects of the trans-Alaskan pipeline on Alaskan natives to the climate for black women in higher education.

City College officials boast that their school has produced more Nobel Prize winners than any other public college in the nation.

The college’s recent history has been tumultuous, however. Leonard Jeffries, a black historian, was removed as chairman of the black studies department after he made a speech that was roundly criticized as anti-Semitic.