I am a cultural historian and arts advocate. My life has been words—teaching and writing. My passion is speech without words—art and music.  After years of introducing students to the arts, I turned to the arts in my and surrounding towns.  I have volunteered extensively to foster the arts—visual, spoken, performing, participatory and  to further an understanding of the built environment. I write about the art beat in West Orange and  Montclair and other area towns—who & what are  happening and why.  > See Read More for a fuller profile.

Carol Selman is a cultural historian, writer, arts advocate, educator and avid art and music lover.  She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell University with Distinction in All Subjects.  At Cornell, she was in the history honors program.  She took a guest senior year at Barnard College, continuing her history studies and deepening her work in art history.  She later was a fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, studying American urban history.

While still at Barnard, she began teaching at Millburn High School where she soon initiated the Advanced Placement US History course and helped bring about an elective system.  Her many electives included courses on  art history and culture, social and cultural history and film and American society.

Ms. Selman was subsequently awarded a sabbatical grant to attain her first master's degree at SUNY Stony Brook in American Studies.  She later studied there as a teaching fellow, working with the esteemed cultural historian Dr. William R. Taylor. Her master's  thesis  reversed  the conventional  historical thinking on the meaning and societal role of American popular music of the first half of the 2oth century. 

Ms. Selman was named gubernatorial appointee to the New Jersey Historical Commission in 1992, reappointed through three administrations.  There she served as a public member, chairing the committee on publications and serving on the committee on grants and prizes.

In addition, she has written a teaching program on artist Arshile Gorky for the Newark Museum and was a consultant to the rethinking and installation of their American wing in the late 1990s.

An innovative and highly regarded educator, she has been often named to Who's Who in American Teaching and Who's Who among American Women.  She has received commendations from several colleges and published articles on how to use local history and create historical/architectural walking guides.

She has traveled widely in Europe, largely to stare at art which she does whenever she can at museums and galleries throughout the area, and when she accompanies her husband to his out  of town performances.   

In 2005, her husband was the musical director and among the  performers at An Organ Summit Supreme, attracting 1,200 people worldwide to the city of Newark. Ms. Selman, who uses her birth name, named the event and collaborated with WBGO FM Jazz Radio 88.3 on publicity and related articles.

For the past few years she has been the feature writer for an area alumni magazine and also writes profiles and other articles for the publication. She has conducted  100's  of interviews and written many  biographies and pieces on history for the school.  She organizes outreach lectures there and elsewhere in the arts.

Ms. Selman's few minutes of fame occurred when she appeared on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" as a guest commentator, reading one of her humor pieces.  A woman who knows how to keep a secret, she has  been a ghost writer and a writing coach.