MONTÁS, Roosevelt

Dr. Roosevelt MontásRoosevelt Montás was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to New York as a teenager.  He attended public schools in Queens and was admitted to Columbia College in 1991 through its Opportunity Programs. He graduated from Columbia in 1995 with a major in Comparative Literature.  In 2003, he completed a Ph.D. in English, also at Columbia, where he began teaching in the faculty of the English Department in 2004. In 2008, he was appointed Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Director of the Center for the Core Curriculum at Columbia College. After 10 years, he stepped down from his role as director to take on a position as a senior lecturer in the department of English and comparative literature in Columbia’s Center of American Studies.

Montás specializes in Antebellum American literature and culture, with a particular interest in American national identity.  His dissertation, Rethinking America, 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. 

Montás speaks and writes on the history, meaning, and the future of liberal education and is writing a book for Princeton University Press about his experiences as a student and teacher.