Michele Cataldi

Michele (Mike) Cataldi, PhD, passed away peacefully on May 3, 2025 after several decades of battling cancer. Born in Terlizzi, Bari Italy on November 21, 1937, he learned many difficult and joyous lessons as a child while living and surviving under a fascist regime, a Civil War and World War II. He is survived by his loving and devoted wife of 59 years, Angela (Lina) Cataldi (Prisciandaro); two devoted daughters, Angela (Michelle) DeLillo and Nancy Grecco (Jamie); two loving grandchildren, Nicholas Michael DeLillo and Michela Rosangela DeLillo; two sisters, Elisabetta Rizzi and Angela Bellotti; and a very large extended family. He was especially proud that his granddaughter was named after him.

Despite his difficult childhood environment, he exceled in the two things that were to define his life’s work, education and sports. In 1957, he graduated from the Istituto Tecnico Professionale (High School) in Bari, Italy where he was the High School Regional Coss-country Champion and played semi-professional soccer.

In 1957 he immigrated to the United States with his parents, Francesco and Angelamichele Cataldi, and three sisters, Elisabetta, Giuseppina and Angela, and settled into the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx while working as a machinist in Manhattan. An avid believer in social mobility through hard work, he understood deeply that education was a very necessary part of growth. With no access or means for a higher education and, embracing his new country with deep pride, he enlisted with the United States Air Force in 1959 where he served in the Orient, Europe and Asia and was honorably discharged in 1964. While serving, and despite his very limited English, he reached the rank of noncommissioned officer, was selected to join the Air Force Track and Field Team as a long distance runner (where he was a 1960 Olympic hopeful), won the June 1961 Pacific Air Force Championship in the 3000 meter Steeplechase in a record time and was honored with the 1961 Outstanding Airman of the Year for Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa Award for his ability to design and manufacture tools that made jet engine maintenance more efficient and less expensive.

Upon discharge from the military, he received his GED, leveraged the GI bill and embarked on his higher education journey which continued throughout his life. He received a BA from Hunter College and an MA and PhD from Middlebury College and the University of Florence. He was a two-time Fulbright Scholar (1980 Italy and 2002 China).

With an ability to speak five languages, Mike was a gifted educator and administrator for the NYC Board of Education where he worked for over 35 years. Most notably, in September 1986, he founded and served as Principal of the highly successful and honored Hostos Lincoln Academy (Hostos) in the South Bronx, one of the poorest and educationally underserved areas in the US. Having experienced the depravation, danger and war crimes during his childhood, Mike understood the challenges and difficulties experienced by children of this underserved community and set out to make Hostos “an oasis of educational excellence in the South Bronx”. Along with his beloved staff, he succeeded and so did the 98% minority student population of Hostos. Hostos students experienced a 0% dropout rate, an over 90% attendance rate. In 1997, Hostos was listed in The New York Times as a top 10 NYS school for its English Regents passing rate (a remarkable feat considering a large number of students did not have English spoken in the home). Hostos was awarded the National Blue Ribbon School Of Excellence (U.S. Secretary of Education 2001/2002). In October 1994, a Newsweek Magazine article entitled “In Defiance Of Darwin: How a Public School in The Bronx Turns Dropouts into Scholars”, discarded the theory of the then newly published book, “The Bell Curve” (whose authors claimed that “blacks as a group are intellectually inferior to white and that little can be done to help.”) by visiting Hostos and upholding its academic success as a rebuff to the new book’s theories.

Throughout his career, Mike continued to coach high school soccer and track. He was a member of the Police Athletic League (PAL), served on the Extended Cabinet for Hostos Community College NYC and in 1998 was appointed to the City University of NY (CUNY) Italian Language Advisory Board. His awards and honors include: Supervisor Of The Year (NYC Board of Education 2000), Principal of the year (Council of Supervisors and Administrators 2002), and the Leone of San Marco Award: Outstanding Italian-American Educator (Italian Heritage Culture of the Bronx and Westchester 1992). Mike was also a founding member of FIAME, whose mission was to overcome the negative stereotyping of Italian Americans and reduce the high school dropout rate among Italian American students.

A true renaissance man, Mike also loved to travel with his beloved wife, build, fix and garden. Mike and Lina’s many adventures throughout Europe and the Caribbean were epic. Mike’s extensive projects stand and are enjoyed to this day by his family. He was a family man and loved and supported his wife, daughters, grandchildren and son-in-law as only a man of true faith and progressive thinking can. He will be missed. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in his name to Capuchin Franciscans Province of St. Mary at the following link, Support Us - Capuchins - Capuchins

A celebration of Mike’s life will take place at the Pelham Funeral Home, located at 64 Lincoln Ave., Pelham N.Y., on Friday May 9, 2025, between the hours of 2:00 pm and 8:00 pm. A Funeral Mass will be held, at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, located at 575 Fowler Ave, Pelham NY., 10803 on Saturday May 10, 2025, at 10:00am. Interment will follow at Woodlawn Cemetery.