Roosevelt Montás, Executive Director
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).
