Now the associate director of Safety and Security at Dartmouth, Montas said he found the marriage of the two - his creative inclinations and his background in public safety - in accepting his position at the College.
The job, as he saw it described, would allow him to "make a contribution both with my background in law enforcement and security in an academic institution, but would allow me to continue engrossing in academia and being creative," Montas said.
During an interview, Montas pulled a large, black leather notebook from his desk, a daily journal he began in high school, which Montas considers the official beginning of his writing career.
Montas attended high school in Queens after leaving the small, rural town of Cambitia in southern Dominican Republic. He was 16 and in pursuit of an American education and socioeconomic opportunity. Montas received bachelor's degrees in secondary education and Spanish from Queens College and a master's degree in Spanish literature from the University of Cincinnati, where he began, but has not completed, his PhD.
After only three weeks on the job, Montas, who began work at Dartmouth on April 1, plans to leave for a one-week hiatus to travel back to the Dominican. He will be the guest of honor at the 10th International Book Fair, an honor he received upon winning the Literary Overseas Letters Award presented by the Dominican Republic's Commissioner of Culture in the United States for his book of short stories titled "Reminiscencias." Most of Montas' work is written in Spanish, although publishers are discussing translating his prize-winning book.
Montas said his favorite story in the book is "Historia de Mudos," a partially fictionalized account grandfather's struggle to make his mute dog bark through a series of provocations that ultimately resulted in the dog's death.
"Anything and everything sort of provokes me," Montas said.
Montas offered one example of such moments of inspiration when he needed to furnish his empty New England home.
"First I convinced myself that prices were too expensive, and when I went to four or five different stores, I convinced myself that I had no option. I settled on one piece that I wanted to buy, and prior to buying it, I convinced myself that I didn't need it. Went back home and I needed it - I had no couch to sit on," Montas said. "Contradiction - that inner struggle - was something that inspired me to write."
Montas said he admires the sense of community in the small, close-knit Dartmouth campus and specifically within the Safety and Security offices.
"One of the things that happened at NYU is that I have known people for five years, and we'd talk on the phone and we'd e-mail for work-related things and [I had] never seen their face," Montas said. "And I have that sense that that doesn't happen much over here, and I'm very happy to have that perspective of having that human interaction with people."
Prior to working at NYU, Montas worked for the VERA Institute of Justice, a non-profit organization whose purpose he described as making the government services more just for the people, while also increasing cost-efficiency for the government.
