Our Team and Board

Roosevelt Montás is the inaugural executive director of the Chang Chavkin Center and the John and Margaret Bard Professor in Liberal Education and Civic Life at Bard College.

Roosevelt emigrated from the Dominican Republic to Queens, New York at age 12 and encountered the Western classics as an undergraduate in Columbia University’s renowned Core Curriculum. The experience changed his life and determined his career—he went on to earn a PhD in English and comparative literature, to serve as director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum for 10 years, and to advocate for access to high impact liberal education for all students.

Roosevelt is the author of Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation (Princeton University Press, 2021). He specializes in American political thought and literature and is also author of Becoming America: Four Documents That Shaped a Nation (forthcoming, Princeton University Press, 2026) and co-editor of The Princeton History of American Political Thought (forthcoming, Princeton University Press, 2026).

Jessica Lee is the associate director of the Chang Chavkin Center and chair of the Knowledge for Freedom network.

Jessica began her work in liberal education in 2011 as the coordinator of the Freedom and Citizenship (F&C) program at Columbia University’s Center for American Studies. She served as the program’s executive director until 2025. F&C invites local high school students from under-resourced communities to live on Columbia’s campus while taking part in an intensive humanities summer seminar. It continues working with students year-round to support their college applications and to guide them through a civic leadership project. F&C’s success has inspired other universities to run similar programs, and Jessica co-founded the Knowledge for Freedom network to support faculty, administrators, and students participating in such programs nationwide.

In addition to her work on liberal education, Jessica is a lecturer in history, specializing in United States immigration and citizenship. She received her BA in history and Italian literature from Bryn Mawr College and her PhD in history from Columbia University. Her current research examines how Italy’s fascist government created an Italian American voting block in the years before WWII.

Max Botstein is the assistant director of the Chang Chavkin Center for Liberal Education and Civic Life and visiting assistant professor of humanities at Bard College, where he teaches in the College’s liberal education First Year Seminar Program. He previously held a post-doctoral fellowship at Bard’s Hannah Arendt Center. Max is a historian of modern Europe, whose research focuses on the role of liberal education in the democratization and reform of German universities after the Second World War. Before coming to Bard, he taught courses in history and philosophy at Harvard University, where he received his PhD.

Zachary Roberts is special projects manager in research and communications at the Chang Chavkin Center. He received his PhD in English and comparative literature from Columbia University, and has taught in Columbia’s Core Curriculum and the English department at Vassar College. His research focuses on American literature, culture, and intellectual history, as well as the history of liberal education. Zachary also serves as director of the Teagle Humanities Fellowship, a summer mentorship program for alumni/ae in the Knowledge for Freedom network, and teaches in the Freedom & Citizenship program. He also serves as the program manager for the National Fellowship on the Future of Liberal Education sponsored by the Teagle Foundation.

Andrew Delbanco is chair of the Board of Advisors. Professor Delbanco writes widely on American literature and history. He is president of the Teagle Foundation and Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies at Columbia University. He earned his AB, AM, and PhD degrees from Harvard University.

Laura and Arnold are philanthropists who have a deep appreciation for the transformational impact of a college education. In 2018, they founded the Chang Chavkin Scholars program to help first-generation high school students attend and graduate from college in four years. They remain committed to opening doors for those underrepresented in higher education, and who don’t often complete that education.