(Trenton, NJ) – The New Jersey Council for the Humanities announces that three new members were recently elected to its Board of Trustees. The Council welcomes Michael W. Klein, J.D. Ph.D., Howard Marchitello, Ph.D., and Michael Robertson, Ph.D. to the governing body of the organization. They each have a professional background and extensive experience in the humanities. Klein, Marchitello, and Robertson will each take an active role to promote the Council in their own communities and to promote the public humanities throughout the state.
Members of the NJCH Board of Trustees undertake important governance, fiduciary, and advisory responsibilities and play a key role in fundraising and advocacy. All members foster the advancement of the NJCH mission – to harness the power of the humanities to strengthen our society.
These newly-elected members bring a wealth of expertise and talent to their service to NJCH, the nonprofit state partner of the National Endowment of the Humanities.
Howard Marchitello, Ph.D. is Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School at Rutgers University-Camden, where he is also Professor of English. A scholar of early modern British literature, he is the author of Remediating Shakespeare in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), The Machine in the Text: Science and Literature in the Age of Shakespeare and Galileo (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Narrative and Meaning (Cambridge University Press, 1997); he is the General Editor of the Palgrave Handbooks of Literature and Science, in five volumes. Prior to joining Rutgers in 2007 Howard was on the faculty of the English Department at Texas A&M University, where he served as director of the graduate programs. He earned his Ph.D. from SUNY Buffalo (1990). Howard lives in Riverton, NJ with his wife, Lynne Vallone, who is Professor of Childhood Studies at Rutgers University-Camden.
Michael Robertson, Ph.D., Professor of English at The College of New Jersey, is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships and author of three award-winning books, including Worshipping Walt: The Whitman Disciples, which was an NJCH Honor Book. He also co-edited Walt Whitman, Where the Future Becomes Present, a collection of papers originally delivered at the 2005 Walt Whitman Sesquicentennial Symposium sponsored by NJCH. At TCNJ Michael has served as faculty representative to the Board of Trustees and President of the Faculty Senate. A resident of Princeton, he was a gubernatorial appointee to the NJCH Board from 2015 to 2018.
Michael W. Klein, J.D., Ph.D. is a Richard P. Nathan Public Policy Fellow at the Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York (SUNY), working on projects with direct policy implications for higher education accessibility and affordability. He previously served as the interim executive director of the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University. From 2012-2017, Michael served as the executive director of the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities, and he has held several positions in state government. He has made presentations and has published articles on higher education policy and finance, intellectual property law, entrepreneurship, collective bargaining, and the First Amendment. Michael received a BA in history cum laude from Princeton University, a JD from Boston College Law School, a certificate in Professional Achievement in Nonprofit Management from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a PhD in Higher Education Administration from New York University. He is a Pennington resident.
“Every nonprofit organization benefits immensely from engaged and knowledgeable board members,” said Executive Director Carin Berkowitz, Ph.D. “All three new trustees have been passionate, longtime advocates for the public humanities in New Jersey, and we are delighted to welcome them onto the NJCH board.”
Elected members of the NJCH Board of Trustees can serve up to two terms. Each term is three years. They also participate on at least one committee.
Pictured above, from left to right: Michael Robertson, Ph.D., Michael W. Klein, J.D., Ph.D., Howard Marchitello, Ph.D.
To download a PDF of this release, click here.
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About the New Jersey Council for the Humanities
The New Jersey Council for the Humanities is a nonprofit state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. NJCH harnesses the power of the humanities to strengthen our pluralistic society. We envision a New Jersey that delights in diversity, appreciates that there are no easy answers, and finds joy and understanding in the humanities. We work statewide with cultural and community organizations to bring dynamic programming to the local level.
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