Bernard Warren Harleston (born January 22, 1930) is a former college administrator who was selected in 1981 as the first African-American president of City College of New York. Harleston was born in New York City and raised in Hempstead. He received his bachelor's degree at Howard University in 1951 and his psychology doctorate at University of Rochester in 1955. A year after receiving his doctorate, he was appointed as an assistant professor of psychology at Tufts University, working there for the next 35 years and rising to the position of dean in 1970. From 1968 to 1970, he briefly served as provost and acting president of Lincoln University.