Macsu Hill, Ph.D., Program Director

Macsu Hill serves as the Director of Special Programs where she creates, implements, and assesses program activities for specialized academic pathways for a diverse student body within the Honors Living-Learning Community. Dr. Hill holds a doctorate degree in Education Leadership, Management, and Policy from Seton Hall University and a Master of Public Health degree, with a concentration in Urban and Environmental Health from Rutgers-Newark School of Public Health. Her dissertation focused on the influence of race and gender on doctoral sociology student access to and quality of academic mentoring, and post-doctoral student entry into the job market.

Prior to joining the HLLC, Macsu worked at the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center, Rutgers School of Nursing where she served as a Program Manager for a three-year, 13-million dollar Special Project of National Significance (SPNS) to improve the screening and treatment of sexually transmitted infectious among people with HIV as part of multi-state, multi-site clinical initiative of Health Resources and Services Administration. In this role, she worked with the National Network of STD Clinical Prevention Training Centers (NNPTCs) to provide all staff and provider training on culturally appropriate, stigma-free, welcoming health care services for diverse and low-income populations. Macsu has been a Certified Health Education Specialist for 12 years. Also, Macsu is an avid advocate for educational and foundational skills to reduce disparities in youth productivity, social justice, as well as health outcomes that vulnerable populations face both domestically and globally.

Timothy Eatman, Ph.D., Principal Investigator

Timothy Eatman is the inaugural dean of the Honors Living-Learning Community at Rutgers Newark. Most recently, he held an appointment as Associate Professor of Higher Education in the School of Education at Syracuse University. From 2012 to 2017, Tim served as Faculty Co-Director of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life (IA). He is co-author of Scholarship in Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policy in the Engaged University, a seminal IA research report on faculty rewards and publicly engaged scholarship. Tim’s research explores institutional policy and equity issues in higher education. He has published in such venues as the Journal of Educational Finance, Readings on Equal Education, Diversity and Democracy, and The Huffington Post, and has written several other book chapters and reports. He is co-editor of the Cambridge Handbook of Service Learning and Civic Engagement, released in 2017. He serves in national roles including as a faculty member for Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Summer Institutes on High Impact Practices and the Advisory Panel for the Carnegie Engagement Classification for Community Engagement. Tim sits on the editorial board of University of Michigan Press – The New Public Scholarship book series, Urban Education, Diversity, and Democracy and reviews for several scholarly journals and publications. The recipient of the 2010 Early Career Research Award for the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE) and now a member of the board, Tim often consults with Higher Education associations and institutions for collaborative research, keynotes, workshops and consultancies.

Dr. Melissa L. Cooper, Ph.D., Faculty Director

Dr. Cooper is a writer, historian and professor. She is the author of the groundbreaking historical study, Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race, and the American Imagination (2017). Making Gullah captured the attention of general reading audiences, students and scholars. Cooper’s book was discussed and featured in a variety of media ranging from The New Yorker, Atlanta Journal Constitution and Upscale Magazine to podcasts and radio shows. Cooper is also the author of “Selling Voodoo In Migration Metropolises” in the edited collection Race and Retail (2015), and Instructor’s Resource Manual—Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans, with Documents (2012).

Dr. Cooper’s teaching experience spans more than two decades. She is currently Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University-Newark, and has been a member of the faculty at the University of South Carolina. Her long teaching career includes teaching diverse populations of learners in New Jersey public high schools. As a result, Dr. Cooper was featured in the Peabody Award winning documentary “Minding the Gap: Why Good Schools are Failing Black Students” produced by Nancy Solomon, Spencer Fellow, in 2008. Dr. Cooper won an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship from the Carnegie Corporation in 2019. She was also a 2021 Scholar-in-Residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Marta Elena Esquilin, Associate Dean

Marta Elena Esquilin is the Associate Dean of the Honors Living-Learning Community and Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in the American Studies Program within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers-Newark. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Vermont in 1999, and her Master’s Degree in 2003 from Teachers College, Columbia University in Higher Education Administration. In 2005, under the leadership of Dr. Derald Wing Sue within the Counseling & Psychology department at Teachers College, she was a co-author of the seminal article, “Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice”. American Psychologist, 62(4), 271-286. From 2005 to 2015, Marta served as the Director of Social Justice and Intercultural Programs within the Office of Multicultural Affairs at Columbia University. Prior to her role at Columbia, she worked at The Posse Foundation and in a variety of community based organizations focused on youth development, college access & equity, and community building. She is currently the Board chair of CLAGS (Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies), the oldest LGBTQ research center in the country, and she is the first Latina to serve in this role. She works as a diversity expert and consultant within educational settings including secondary schools, community-based organizations, and higher education institutions around the United States.

Marta’s passion and current work focuses on creating educational environments that encourage the positive development and success of all students. She is particularly interested in raising awareness about how microaggressions manifest to create hostile environments for marginalized social identities within work and school settings. Most recently, she has been developing trainings and assessment tools aimed at increasing cultural competence, addressing the impacts of microaggressions, and creating sustainable infrastructures to support student success within educational settings. Her work aims to equip administrators, faculty, staff and students with the skills necessary for creating environments that are affirming to all identities and experiences.

Engelbert Santana, Dean of Advisement

Engelbert Santana is the Dean of Advisement for the Honors Living-Learning Community (HLLC) at Rutgers University-Newark overseeing and administrating the day-to-day HLLC advising operations, academic programs, and co-curricular initiatives offered through the HLLC.
He received his Bachelor’s Degree from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in 2005 and a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education in 2008. Before joining the HLLC, Engelbert served in various roles at Rutgers University-Newark. First serving as an Assessment Counselor with the Student Support Services Program (2005-2009), and then transitioning to the Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF) Program (2009-2016) as a Senior Counselor.

Professionally and personally, Engelbert is a passionate advocate and staunch supporter of programs and initiatives that provide access and opportunities for talented students who may be marginalized or overlooked in higher education. He constantly advocates for opportunities for undocumented students and has given numerous workshops focusing on access to higher education, best practices, and development initiatives for underrepresented students.
In addition to his administrative role at Rutgers University-Newark, Engelbert is a Part-Time Lecturer in the Spanish and Portuguese Department, where he teaches Introduction to Latin@/x Cultural Studies.