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Gartner Lecture Series: An Evening with Roosevelt Montás and Andrew Delbanco with the Dallas Institute of Humanities & Culture
by
Thu, Oct 15, 2026
5:30 PM – 7:30 PM CDT (GMT-5)
Private Location (sign in to display)
181
Registered
Details
This event is required for first-year Honors students. The event will begin with a 1-hour lecture, followed by a reception. The reception will have a book signing line with Roosevelt Montás and food for students.
Students are required to attend in business casual attire. If you have any questions, please contact Program Coordinator Tulsi Lohani at tlohani@smu.edu.
Food Provided
Speakers
Roosevelt Montás
Lecturer in Freedom and Citizenship
Columbia University (New York City)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/roosevelt-montas-3ba04926/
Roosevelt Montás is a lecturer in Freedom and Citizenship at Columbia University, and a former director of the program.
He 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. From 2008 to 2018, he served as Director of the Center for the Core Curriculum and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Columbia College. Roosevelt 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. He regularly teaches moral and political philosophy in the Columbia Core Curriculum as well seminars in American Studies. Roosevelt speaks widely on the history, place, and future of the humanities in the higher education and 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).
Andrew Delbanco
Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies
Columbia University (New York City)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-delbanco-b60b31217/
Andrew Delbanco, winner of the Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates, is the author of College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be (2012), Melville: His World and Work (2005), The Death of Satan (1995), Required Reading: Why Our American Classics Matter Now (1997), The Real American Dream (1999), and The Puritan Ordeal (1989), among other books. His work has been translated into several languages, including German, Spanish, Korean, Russian, and Chinese. Professor Delbanco's essays appear regularly in The New York Review of Books and other journals, on topics ranging from American literary and religious history to contemporary issues in higher education. In 2001, he was named by Time Magazine as "America's Best Social Critic" and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also an elected member of the American Philosophical Society, a trustee of the Teagle Foundation, the Library of America, and trustee emeritus of the National Humanities Center. In February 2012, President Barack Obama presented Professor Delbanco with the National Humanities Medal for his writings on higher education and the place classic authors hold in history and contemporary life.
Joan Arbery
Teaching Associate Professor and Assistant Director, University Honors Program
Southern Methodist University
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joan-arbery-63a2675/
Dr. Joan Arbery was born in Dallas, but grew up in Nashua, NH, for most of her childhood. After college at the University of Dallas, she spent her graduate years at the University of Notre Dame, with a year in Dublin on a graduate fellowship. After a brief stint in freelance journalism here in town, she started teaching at SMU in 2009, and has taught in Honors since 2016. During that time, she has also worked with the University of Dallas and the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture (now part of SMU). In addition to serving as the historian for SMU's Phi Beta Kappa chapter, she looks forward to joining Faculty Senate this year. She loves teaching the Honors curriculum and Honors students, engaging with their intellectual curiosity and imagination. Meanwhile, she's the mother of an 11-year-old son, Jude Stefano – they love traveling, exploring Dallas, hanging out with their dog Piper, and watching old crime shows like Monk.
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