June 21, 2021

“Dr. Maurice Hall brings deep academic experience, a passion for Bennington College’s mission and pedagogy, and a strategic perspective to the Provost position,” said President Walker. “As the chief academic officer of the College, Dr. Hall will be a visible, engaged, and active champion of faculty and students. I’m looking forward to working closely with Dr. Hall on the next phase of Bennington’s legacy, and ensuring we are preparing students to be able to take on the most urgent problems facing the world, and to build meaningful, satisfying lives.”

Currently, Dr. Hall serves as the Dean and Professor for the School of the Arts and Communication at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, NJ. In this role, Dr. Hall has been instrumental in redesigning and strengthening the school’s operations in a number of ways, including re-envisioning the school’s value proposition, strengthening enrollment, updating and modernizing the overall curriculum, clarifying core competencies, and streamlining the operational budget, among others. Dr. Hall also led the school’s fundraising campaign to establish a new, innovative lab space focussed on emerging technology and creative media. Dr. Hall collaborated with his team to redesign the first-year experience, renewing the focus on internships/career preparation, cultural competence and intellectual rigor in both curricular and co-curricular offerings.

Additionally, he has been a leader in contributing to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts on his campus. As co-chair of the Campus Diversity Council, his work has centered on strategic planning and campus-wide projects that include assessing and reviewing all policies for consistency with DEI objectives and addressing a series of anti-racist initiatives in response to recommendations from faculty and staff. Dr. Hall also led a year-long project with the faculty in the School of the Arts and Communication focused on decolonizing the curriculum. His experience includes a significant emphasis on college-wide shared governance and cross-disciplinary leadership.

About his upcoming role at Bennington, Dr. Hall said, "I have always been aware of Bennington as an extraordinary institution that produces graduates who are literally game changers on the national, cultural and social landscape. It is a privilege to join this exceptional community, and I look forward to working with President Walker and with my new colleagues to build an even more illustrious future at Bennington."

Previously, Dr. Hall served as Department Chair for the Communication Department at Villanova University, where he was responsible for overseeing the largest department in the College of Arts and Sciences, supporting approximately 500 undergraduate and graduate students. Dr. Hall’s fundraising efforts helped to establish a new, state-of-the-art communication multimedia facility. He worked to extend the global/international component of the department’s curriculum by creating, with faculty, three unique international experiences for students including summer course/internship/service-learning experiences in Ghana, West Africa, and Shanghai, China. He has provided consultation on developing communication-specific course experiences at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad (DIS) in Copenhagen, Denmark. Prior to his time at Villanova, Dr. Hall served as Program Development Director, Leadership Academy, at Howard University. 

Dr. Hall holds a doctorate in Organizational and Intercultural Communication and a Master’s degree in Mass Communication from Howard University. He has a BA, with honors, in Literature from the University of the West Indies. He also holds a Certificate in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Westminster.