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News
Dowling Kicks-Off 2006/07 Annual Theme 'Celebrate Long Island' with
'Walt Whitman: Our Gift to the Nation and the World'
OAKDALE, NY - Dowling College will kick off a yearlong lineup of
special events "Celebrating Long Island" with a tribute to the
area's most renowned poet in "Walt Whitman: Our Gift to the
Nation and the World", a presentation by Dr. Elio Zappulla, Chair of
the English Department at Dowling College. The event is free and open to
the public and will take place on Thursday, Sept. 14, 2006 from 2 - 5
p.m. in the Hunt Room, located at Dowling's historic Rudolph Campus in
Oakdale, NY.
Walt Whitman is, by common consent, America's greatest poet and Long
Island's greatest gift to the nation. Born and raised in Huntington, LI,
Whitman farmed, taught, studied, mused and daydreamed here, carrying
with him for the rest of his life precious memories of "Paumanok," for
which he nourished an abiding love no matter where he later lived.
Whitman was the great Democrat of his day, a man enamored of the masses,
of the less privileged among humanity, who moved to Washington during
the Civil War to give years of service as an unpaid nurse, helping to
relieve the suffering of literally thousands of wounded soldiers, Union
and Confederate. How ironic that he died poor, half paralyzed, confined
to a wheelchair, living in a railroad shack in Camden, New Jersey, his
genius largely unrecognized. Long Islanders can only feel immense and
justifiable pride in having given to America and to the world not only
one of the world's great poets but also one of its greatest
humanitarians.
Also in conjunction with Dowling's theme, the Mu Tau chapter of Sigma
Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society, will host "An
Evening of Poetry" by Long Island Poets on Monday, Nov. 6, 2006 at
7:00 p.m. This event will also take place in the Hunt Room.
Refreshments will be served.
Readers will include Daniel Thomas Moran, the Poet Laureate of Suffolk
County and at least three Dowling College professors, Virginia Walker
Ph.D., Professor Julie Sheehan, an adjunct member of the English
Department and William Thierfelder, Ph.D. Dr. Walker's work has
appeared nationally and is represented in The Light of City and Sea,
published by Street Press, a recent anthology of verse by Long Island
poets that she also helped to edit. Sheehan will read from her book,
Orient Point. Dr. Thierfelder will read from his collection, How the
Dinosaurs Devoured the Humans, published this past May. Poets from
Nassau and Suffolk will join them to share their work.
About Dowling College
Dowling College is an independent, coeducational college that serves more than 6,500 students at
its historic Rudolph Campus on the banks of the Connetquot River in Oakdale, NY, and the 105-acre
Brookhaven Campus in eastern Long Island and a business center located near the Nassau-Suffolk
border in Melville. Dowling offers Bachelor′s, Master′s, and Doctoral degrees in several
disciplines through its four schools: Arts and Sciences, Aviation, Business, and Education.
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