Bard College Appoints Roosevelt Montás to its Faculty as the John and Margaret Bard Professor in Liberal Education and Civic Life

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—Bard College is pleased to announce that Roosevelt Montás has been appointed as the John and Margaret Bard Professor in Liberal Education and Civic Life at Bard College, a newly created faculty chair. Beginning in the 2025–26 academic year, Montás will serve with tenure in the Division of Languages and Literature as the first John and Margaret Bard Professor in Liberal Education and Civic Life.

At Bard, Montás will teach in the undergraduate college and lead research for the advancement of liberal education. Montás’s research and teaching focus on the importance of liberal education and the study of great books—texts of major cultural significance that grapple with fundamental human questions—to prepare students for lives of purpose and to promote the formation of citizens for a democratic society. At a critical moment in the state and future of higher education and the role it plays in our nation’s democracy, Bard College remains a leader in its commitment to the power of liberal education in civic participation.

“In the face of the disintegration of general education curricula across higher education, Bard has remained committed to small seminars that bring students and teachers together around common readings to discuss fundamental issues facing us as individuals and as a society,” said Montás. “I am thrilled to join Bard’s faculty in this commitment, and to add my efforts to its tradition of bringing this form of education to communities beyond its own campus.”

“We are honored to welcome Professor Roosevelt Montás as a distinguished new member of the Languages and Literature faculty at Bard,” said Dean of the College Deirdre d’Albertis. “As a humanist and fierce champion of general education, he inspires renewed commitment to teaching transformative texts in a time of increasing discord and fragmentation in the academy.”

Montás was born in the Dominican Republic and immigrated to New York as a teenager, where he attended public schools in Queens, New York. His book Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation (Princeton University Press, 2021) reflects on his experiences as a student and then a teacher at Columbia University, explaining how a liberal education transformed his life and why Great Books have the power to speak to people of all backgrounds. He is also author of Becoming America: Four Documents That Shaped a Nation and Why Their Ideas Still Matter (forthcoming, Princeton University Press, 2026) and coeditor of The Princeton History of American Political Thought (forthcoming, Princeton University Press, 2026). He speaks and writes on the history, place, and future of liberal education and his essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, The Point Magazine, The Financial Times, Aeon Magazine, The New York Daily News, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, The Dispatch, The Wall Street Journal, and other outlets.

Prior to joining Bard, he has been on faculty at Columbia University as Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English and served as director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum from 2008 to 2018, where he taught moral and political philosophy as well as seminars in American political thought in the Center for American Studies. He is currently director of the Freedom and Citizenship Program at Columbia, which introduces high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds to the Western political tradition through the study of primary texts and helps them prepare competitive applications to college.

Montás specializes in antebellum American literature and culture, with a particular interest in American national identity. His doctoral dissertation Rethinking America: Abolitionism and the Antebellum Transformation of the Discourse of National Identity won Columbia University’s 2004 Bancroft Award. In 2000, he received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student and in 2008 he received the Dominican Republic’s National Youth Prize. In 2023, he was conferred the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa by Ursinus College.

This newly endowed faculty chair was made possible through the generosity of the Chang Chavkin Charitable Foundation.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place and Massena properties, Bard’s campus consists of more than 1,200 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; advanced degrees through 13 graduate programs; nine early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 165-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at the main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.

This event was last updated on 03-04-2025

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