Michael Bernstein

Michael A. Bernstein, PhD, an Affiliate Consultant for K&A, is President of The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), a highly ranked and highly selective public institution near Trenton, NJ. At TCNJ, he leads “higher education, elevated”—“a rare combination of an exceptionally high-quality education and outcomes typically associated with elite private colleges — but at a fraction of the price.” Before his permanent appointment to the presidency, he had served as interim president at the College.

Earlier, Dr. Bernstein was Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Stony Brook University (of the State University of New York); during the 2019-2020 academic year, he served as Stony Brook’s interim president, bringing it capably and resolutely through the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. While at Stony Brook, Dr. Bernstein helped sustain a focus on undergraduate student outcomes that achieved a remarkable improvement in retention and graduation rates.

He came to Stony Brook from Tulane University, where he had been the John Christie Barr Professor of History and Economics and the University Provost from 2007 to 2016. While at Tulane, he was part of a senior leadership team that led the institution’s extraordinary and exemplary recovery from the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina. 

Dr. Bernstein’s teaching and research interests focus on the economic and political history of the United States, macroeconomic theory, industrial organization economics, and the history of economic theory. A former Fulbright Scholar at Christ’s College-Cambridge,

Bernstein studied economics at Yale University, where he received his bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees, and a doctorate. Devoted to teaching as much as research, Bernstein received the Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award of the University of California, San Diego – where he also ultimately held appointment as Chair of the Academic Senate and later as Dean of Arts and Humanities.