A conversation with Roosevelt Montás . . .

On April 26, the University community gathered for a conversation about why General Education and Great Books matter.

The featured guest was Roosevelt Montás, Senior Lecturer in the American Studies Program at Columbia University and former director of Columbia College’s Core Curriculum. Montás discussed themes from his recent book, Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation, which makes a powerful case for the value of a Great Books curriculum and the liberal arts more broadly.

Montás shared his remarkable journey from emigrating from the Dominican Republic to New York City when he was just shy of 12 years old, knowing no English, to becoming director of Columbia College’s Core Curriculum, the last remaining required Great Books sequence at an American university. Through a series of encounters with influential mentors—including Plato himself, whose Apology, Crito, and Phaedo he discovered in the trash near his apartment in Queens—Montás found his way to Columbia, where he earned a PhD in English and later helped shape one of the nation’s most recognized Core Curriculum programs.

His memoir has garnered widespread acclaim from publications across the political spectrum, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, and Commentary Magazine. 

The event was sponsored by the CHSS Dean’s Office, the Institute for the Humanities, the MSU Honors Program, the Office of Undergraduate Education, and the Department of Classics and General Humanities.