About Hofstra
Hofstra University is a dynamic private college on Long Island, NY, where students can choose from more than 140 undergraduate and 150 graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, business, communication, education, health and human services, and honors studies, as well as a School of Law and School of Medicine. | more |
Events
Year in Review: 2008
January | February | March | April | May | June/July | August | September | October | November | December
Hofstra celebrates the 2008 Alumni Award winners. (L to r) Hofstra President Stuart Rabinowitz, Randy Frankel, Michael Barnes, Steven Freiberg, Bill Edwards, Monica Horan Rosenthal, Catherine Hunter, and Vice President for Development and Alumni Affairs Alan J. Kelly.
September
September 2: Classes began for the 2008-2009 academic school year. A convocation to welcome first-year and new transfer students to campus was held at the John Cranford Adams Playhouse.
September 7: Hofstra mourned the passing of Law School Professor David A. Diamond, who taught in the procedure, trial practice, and family law areas. He was a co-director of the Northeast Regional Trial Practice Program of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. He also taught and wrote on legal problems of public education and in the area of civil litigation. He was very active in America's civil rights movement. In 1964 he traveled to Mississippi to provide legal services to the disenfranchised. He carried what he experienced there throughout his life and went on to a career defending people in poverty against abuses in the welfare system.
September 8: The Hofstra University Museum opened an exhibition that utilized visual interpretations to showcase the Hofstra Cultural Center presidential conference series, which began in 1982. The Presidents, 1933-2001: History of Presidential Conferences at Hofstra University was on view in both the Lowenfeld Conference and Exhibition Hall and the David Filderman Gallery.
September 9: Former U.S. Treasury Secretaries Paul O'Neill and Robert Rubin addressed economic issues important in the presidential campaign at the John Cranford Adams Playhouse. Floyd Norris, chief financial correspondent for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, moderated the discussion.
September 10: Shashi Tharoor, Ph.D., former under-secretary-general of the United Nations, author, and chairman of Dubai-based Afras Ventures, discussed the U.S. role on the world stage at Monroe Lecture Center Theater. Dr. Tharoor was the official candidate of India for the succession to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2006, and was a close second out of seven contenders in the race.
September 12 to 28: Hofstra Entertainment presented 1776, the Tony Award-winning musical that portrays the Founding Fathers and their momentous creation and signing of the Declaration of Independence. The opening night performance, honoring Joseph D. Monticciolo, president of The Monticciolo Company of Woodbury, NY, was a benefit to support Hofstra student scholarships.
September 15: George Stephanopoulos, ABC News chief Washington correspondent and anchor of This Week, presented a lecture at the John Cranford Adams Playhouse. Mr. Stephanopoulos oversees the network's coverage of Congress and reports on political and policy stories for all ABC News platforms.
September 15: Award-winning novelist and short story writer Ann Beattie was the first speaker in the fifth season of Hofstra's "Great Writers, Great Readings" series. Ms. Beattie's first novel, 1976's Chilly Scenes of Winter, was made into a film, followed by Falling in Place; Love Always; Picturing Will; Another You; My Life, Starring Dara Falcon; and The Doctor's House.
September 16: Regular panelists from CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight -- Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist for The New York Daily News Michael Goodwin, Republican political strategist and communication expert Edward Rollins, and Democratic National Committeeman and communications expert Robert Zimmerman -- presented a program titled "2008 Election Issues Up Close" at Monroe Lecture Center Theater.
September 18: Former and current faculty and deans who served as directors of the Hofstra Cultural Center's groundbreaking presidential conferences over the past 26 years gathered for a round-table discussion, On The Record: A Hofstra Presidential Conference Retrospective, to reminisce and share anecdotes about those events, credited with positively impacting Hofstra's selection as a 2008 presidential debate site. Participants included moderator Herman A. Berliner, Hofstra provost and senior vice president for academic affairs; Bernard J. Firestone, dean, Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (HCLAS); Leon Friedman, the Joseph Kushner Distinguished Professor of Civil Liberties Law; Paul Harper, William F. Levantrosser and Herbert D. Rosenbaum, Hofstra professors emeriti of political science; Eric J. Schmertz, the Edward F. Carlough Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Law and former dean of Hofstra Law School; and Robert C. Vogt, former dean, HCLAS.
September 19: The Alumni Awards Dinner was held at the Garden City Hotel. Honorees included Alumnus of the Year Randy William Frankel '79, general partner and owner, Tampa Bay Rays, and principal owner, Windham Mountain Ski Resort; Young Alumna of the Year ESPN's Catherine E. Hunter '00; and Honorary Alumnus Hofstra Head Softball Coach William W. Edwards, Jr. Recipients of the Award for Alumni Achievement were Hofstra Associate Professor of Psychology Michael J. Barnes '76, '80; Chairman and CEO of Global Cards for Citi Steven J. Freiberg '79, '80; actress Monica Horan Rosenthal '84; and Vice President, Securities Division for Goldman Sachs Group and founder of TeamBrent.com Michael McCreesh '90, '94.
September 19 and 20: Hundreds of volunteers, including students, area residents and biologists, participated in a 24-hour "BioBlitz" to document all living organisms along a 7.5-mile stretch of the Meadowbrook Parkway corridor in Nassau County. Hofstra was the academic sponsor of the Meadowbrook BioBlitz, and the Biology Department provided experts to organize the field work and identify the species found.
September 20: Hofstra celebrated Homecoming with the theme "Great Moments in American History." The Parade of Floats was followed by the Pride's victory over the University of Rhode Island at James M. Shuart Stadium. Hofstra alumni William Green '67 and Martha (Sweeney) Green '68 received the Marjorie and James M. Shuart Family Award in recognition of their outstanding service to Hofstra. The award is named for Hofstra President Emeritus James M. Shuart and his wife, Marjorie, who are both graduates of the University.
September 21: Hofstra hosted the 16th Annual Italian Experience outdoors on the South Campus. This festival, sponsored by Bethpage Federal Credit Union, has grown to be a popular Long Island tradition, as well as one of the largest festivals of its kind in the United States, celebrating Italy's gifts of culture, education and commerce to America.
September 22: Faisal Alam, a gay Muslim activist of Pakistani descent, presented "An LGBT Muslim Perspective on the 2008 Presidential Election." Mr. Alam examined issues of interest to the LGBT community and particularly gay Muslims in the United States.
September 23: The Irish Studies Program launched a semester-long film festival titled "The Reel Ireland." Films included My Left Foot, The Dead, Man of Aran and Angela's Ashes.
September 23: Foreign policy experts discussed America's international relations, the presidential candidates and the role of foreign policy in the 2008 election. Panelists included Jay M. Parker, senior fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations and Georgetown University and Columbia University professor, and Nancy Soderberg, former vice president for multilateral affairs of the International Crisis Group in New York.
September 24: The Center for Civic Engagement and Educate '08 sponsored the sixth annual Day of Dialogue in various locations on Hofstra's campus. "Day of Dialogue, Facing the Future Together" featured nearly 20 programs and speakers covering both domestic and foreign policy issues.
September 25: Hofstra University, in cooperation with North Shore-LIJ Health System, hosted a town hall meeting on one of the nation's most pressing and imploding issues: the cost, effectiveness and accessibility of health care. The town hall meeting was moderated by Alvin Bessent, an editorial writer at Newsday.
September 26: The School of Education, Health and Human Services launched its fall series of lectures and professional development workshops for educators. Topics included Autism Spectrum Disorder: Current Policies and Best Practices; an AIDS education and prevention conference; Reaching All Children: Possibilities and Challenges in Implementing Response to Intervention; and the annual legal clinic for secondary school administrators and supervisors.
September 26: The Department of Information Technology and Quantitative Methods co-sponsored the second annual symposium of The American Society for Quality, Long Island Section, which provided useful information on how to achieve a successful, balanced business process and improve service quality.
September 26: Diana Carlin, found of DebateWatch and co-author of The Third Agenda in U.S. Presidential Debates: DebateWatch and Viewer Reactions, 1996-2004, led a discussion on what to expect during the first presidential debate and how to interpret the candidates' responses.
September 29: The National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra UniversitySM released the results of a national poll that found that America's suburban voters regarded the economy as the most important issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. This was the nation's first 2008 presidential poll to focus exclusively on suburban voters. This poll also showed McCain/Palin leading Obama/Biden 48-42 percent among suburban registered voters. A month later, a subsequent NCSS poll showed a reversal in this support: 47-39 in favor of the Obama/Biden ticket.
