“After the 2010 earthquake that took a quarter million lives and devastated Haiti, a colleague wrote to me, ‘Roger, there are countries that simply do not die.’ Fifteen years later, despite everything, I still believe this—and I know that education is the key to Haiti’s future.”

Meet Roger Celestin

Roger Celestin was born in Haiti and emigrated to the United States at the age of eleven. He is Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the French and Francophone Studies Program at the University of Connecticut, holding a D.E.A. from the Sorbonne (University of Paris IV) and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Center, CUNY. Roger is the author of several books, including From Cannibals to Radicals: Figures and Limits of Exoticism, Universalism in Crisis: France from 1851 to the Present, The Delicate Beast, a novel, and co-founder and editor of the scholarly journal Contemporary French and Francophone Studies/SITES. His expertise spans 20th - and 21st century French literature, the French Enlightenment, theory and criticism, travel literature, and film. Roger lives in Manhattan and believes deeply in the importance of holistic higher education as essential to a positive future for Haiti.