Students at the City University of New York expressed outrage yesterday at what they saw as a snub by a mayoral candidate, Fernando Ferrer, saying the former Bronx borough president’s decision not to attend a Democratic candidates’ forum at Hunter College was an “absolute disgrace.”

The Hunter College student government organized the Meet the Democratic Candidates for Mayor forum. Its president, Miles Gerety, said Mr. Ferrer’s failure to attend was motivated by an unwillingness to appear on stage with fellow candidates because he wanted to preserve the “mystique” of being the front-runner.

According to Mr. Gerety, the Ferrer campaign had been amenable to participating in the event until he specified the format, which would require Mr. Ferrer to appear on stage and engage in debate with his fellow candidates, in addition to fielding student questions from the audience. Mr. Gerety said the Ferrer campaign attempted to schedule a separate event in which only its candidate would appear before the students. That offer was made yesterday in response to student demonstrations outside Ferrer campaign headquarters at 38th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, Mr. Gerety said.

At the forum, held on the Upper East Side early yesterday afternoon at Hunter College’s main auditorium, only a handful of the 2,000 seats were filled. The stage had been prepared for a debate format with all of the candidates: a podium, two tables, four chairs, five microphones, and eight bottles of water were neatly arranged, in anticipation of a joint appearance by all four candidates: Mr. Ferrer; a Brooklyn and Queens congressman, Anthony Weiner; the City Council Speaker, Gifford Miller, and the Manhattan borough president, C. Virginia Fields.

Despite a significant delay in beginning the event, Mr. Weiner was the only candidate present at the start. He stood alone before the audience, reiterating the themes of his recent speeches. After his remarks, the congressman fielded inquiries in a lively question-and-answer session that addressed subjects ranging from education to recent polls to Tibet.

Mr. Miller arrived just as the congressman was wrapping up his portion of the event. Ms. Fields appeared before the students shortly after 2 p.m., arriving late from a fund-raising event. The sequential appearances meant the forum included no exchanges or dialogue between candidates. Their remarks were standard-issue campaign fare and repeated points made in other venues.

Mr. Gerety blamed that unraveling, and the poor showing at the event, on Mr. Ferrer.

“Ferrer is primarily to blame for the low attendance – the students wanted to see all the candidates there. When the front-runner decided not to show up, it really detracted from the event,” the student said.

Mr. Ferrer’s absence, Mr. Gerety said, “shows a real failure of leadership.”

A spokesman for the Ferrer campaign, Chad Clanton, said the candidate’s absence was the result of a scheduling conflict. During the Hunter College forum, Mr. Clanton said, Mr. Ferrer was attending a private meeting with the Lieutenants Benevolent Association, a police organization, in the Bronx.

Mr. Gerety, however, insisted the campaign was “lying about this.” He gave this account: When he first approached the Ferrer organization about the forum months ago, there was no scheduling conflict. It was only after the Ferrer people learned that a WCBS political reporter, Andrew Kirtzman, would be moderating the forum that the campaign began paying serious attention to the Hunter inquiries. When Mr. Ferrer and his associates learned “it was not just some lowly student, but a big political reporter from CBS, then they decided to start caring,” Mr. Gerety said. The realization that Mr. Ferrer would have to engage other candidates at the forum, the student-government president said, was the deal-breaker that precipitated the negative response.

Hunter students in the audience yesterday perceived Mr. Ferrer’s absence as a slight.

“It’s an absolute disgrace,” a 19-year-old junior from Brooklyn, Victor Wood, said, adding that Mr. Ferrer’s snub demonstrated an unseemly supposition of superiority. Mr. Ferrer’s purported unwillingness to debate the other candidates, Mr. Wood said, also raised questions about the Democratic candidate’s democratic values and commitment to New Yorkers.

“If he doesn’t want to hear the other candidates’ views,” the student said, “he certainly doesn’t want to hear ours.”

Another student from Brooklyn, 19-year-old sophomore Philip Snyder, said Mr. Ferrer did himself a disservice because the students left the event knowing much more about his rivals than about him. Messrs. Snyder and Wood are constituents of Mr. Weiner, and both said they were impressed by the congressman’s ideas and mastery of the issues in the race. They were also pleased by his willingness to engage the students, especially his decision to walk around the auditorium before the event, introducing himself to audience members and listening to their questions and concerns.

Ms. Fields, too, was appealing to the students.

“She seemed like a really personable, warm lady” who cares about students and education, Mr. Wood said of the borough president.

The president of the student government at the City College of New York, Redeemer Armedzekor, a 27-year-old senior from the Bronx, agreed that Ms. Fields is the most pro-education candidate in the race and shared his Hunter College counterpart’s dismay over Mr. Ferrer’s absence.

“I think it speaks really badly of him, personally and politically,” Mr. Armedzekor said. Yet he said it was not surprising: “Most of us students pretty much know that Ferrer doesn’t really care about students’ issues.”

A Democratic strategist, Hank Sheinkopf, said comments like those from the students should be of concern to Mr. Ferrer’s campaign.

“They may see this as being disrespectful to students’ needs and the university,” Mr. Sheinkopf, who worked for Mark Green’s campaign in the 2001 mayoral race, said.

“Now that he’s had the Diallo flap, he’s had black leadership starting to come away from him – it just adds more fuel to the fire that somehow he’s kind of aloof and removed,” the strategist said.