Welcoming Elizabeth C. Matto, New Eagleton Director

September 13, 2023

Dear Rutgers–New Brunswick Community:

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Elizabeth C. Matto as Director of our Eagleton Institute of Politics, effective September 1, 2023.

Founded in 1956, the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers–New Brunswick studies the ways American politics and government work and change, analyzes how democracy might improve, and promotes political participation and civic engagement. It explores state and national politics through research, education, and public service, linking the study of politics with its day-to-day practice.

Dr. Matto, a political scientist and teacher-scholar-practitioner of democratic education, will lead Eagleton’s faculty, staff, centers, and programs as they develop new knowledge about emerging topics and themes in American politics and as they provide students with a rich variety of internship, service, and employment opportunities, help them develop world-class civic and political skills, and cultivate an ethos for public service. She will also continue to serve as a Research Professor.

Prior to becoming Director, Dr. Matto led Eagleton’s Center for Youth Political Participation, leading research, educational, and public service efforts designed to encourage and support the political learning of high school and college students and civic action among young adults, including those holding and running for office. She has played an important role in producing instrumental civic engagement scholarship and translating it for broad application at a consequential time for democratic education. In 2022, she was invited to serve on the American Political Science Association’s presidential task force on rethinking the political science major. She currently serves as President Jonathan Holloway’s delegate on democratic learning initiatives organized by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars.

Director Matto succeeds John J. Farmer, Jr. who earlier this year announced his decision to step down as Director of Eagleton. Director Farmer, a former New Jersey Attorney General and Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, served as Director of Eagleton beginning in September 2019. He is a University Professor and served as Dean of Rutgers School of Law–Newark and EVP and General Counsel of Rutgers prior to his role at Eagleton. He has led the Miller Center on Policing and Community Resilience since its inception in 2018 and will continue in that role after stepping down from the directorship of Eagleton. He is currently on a one-year research leave.

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Matto to this new role and wishing her great success as Eagleton fulfills the goal of Florence Eagleton, whose bequest established the Institute in 1956: “the development of and education for responsible leadership in civic and governmental affairs and the solution of their political problems.”

Sincerely,

Saundra Tomlinson-Clarke, Ph.D.
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Rutgers University–New Brunswick