Terrence Cheng was unanimously elected by the Board of Regents to become the new president of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system, effective July 2, it was announced today.
Cheng has served as director of UConn’s Stamford campus since 2016; before that he held a variety of positions at Brooklyn College and Lehman College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY).
He succeeds interim president Jane Gates, who took that position upon the retirement of CSCU President Mark Ojakian on Jan. 1. Gates, along with Southern Connecticut State University President Joe Bertolino and Board of Regents Chair Matt Fleury, joined Gov. Ned Lamont and Cheng in making the announcement at SCSU in New Haven this afternoon.
Fleury said that the Board’s advisory committee of 40, consisting of faculty, staff, nonprofits and students, among others, had reviewed numerous candidates before reaching “a very clear conclusion,” calling Cheng “a unique individual.”
Fleury also credited Lamont with “participating personally in determining” who should succeed Ojakian.
Cheng called his appointment “a once in a lifetime honor — that is not an exaggeration. This is a unique opportunity to work and support CSCU’s amazing faculty, staff, administrators and of course students.”
Born in Taiwan, Cheng reiterated CSCU’s commitment to increase equity among all students to produce “the most positive, most productive, most successful people they can be.”
In his new position, Cheng will receive an annual salary of $360,000.
“This is a moment of transformation,” Lamont said. “We don’t want to waste this opportunity when it comes to our kids.”
Further burnishing what he called “the best education system in the country,” the governor said that among the challenges CSCU and the state continue to face is that of adequate workforce training. The roughly 150,000 available jobs in manufacturing, health care, technology and other sectors when he took office are still unfilled, he said.
Lamont said his hope was that, with Cheng at the helm, “we can look back at the end of two, three yeas and say we made a big difference.”
Earlier, Bertolino noted that SCSU would be holding five commencement ceremonies in two weeks, noting that they would be the first major gatherings at the school in almost 18 months.
