{"id":6084,"date":"2019-10-28T09:51:47","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T13:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=6084"},"modified":"2025-06-27T15:37:47","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T19:37:47","slug":"ldls-speaker-captures-his-audience-at-first-lecture-of-2019-2020-academic-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2019\/10\/28\/ldls-speaker-captures-his-audience-at-first-lecture-of-2019-2020-academic-year\/","title":{"rendered":"LDLS Speaker Captures His Audience at First Lecture of 2019-2020 Academic Year"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Dr. Van Alst Jr. giving his lecture entitled Matters of Place.<\/p><\/div>\n

On Sept. 26, 2019, the University of Maine at Presque Isle welcomed LDLS speaker Dr. Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr. After a brief but heartwarming welcome from President Rice, Alst took the stage. Delivering a talk entitled \u201cMatters of Place,\u201d Alst captured his audience\u2019s attention with humor and his apparent passion for writing.<\/p>\n

Alst graduated from UMPI in 2004 with a bachelors in behavioral science. \u00a0He shared how he found his way to UMPI. \u201cI\u2019m from away,\u201d he said. \u201cBut both of my kids were born here. They were both born at TAMC. \u00a0It was pretty cool.\u201d After his children were born, Alst was working for a local mill when he decided to begin classes at UMPI. \u201cI found a cool program and they sent me to UMPI and paid for my first semester,\u201d Alst said. \u201cThey were like \u2018you have to get new clothes, though. \u00a0You can\u2019t dress like that.\u201d He went on to share a story of how he received a voucher to go buy new clothes and wound up buying more of the same clothes he had before.<\/p>\n

Reminiscing about his days at UMPI and the classes he took with then Dr. Rice, Alst shared how he found his interest in writing. \u201cEditing is actually a joy,\u201d he joked. \u201cThe next tattoos I get are going to be the proofreader symbols.\u201d Giving further advice on the importance of editing, Alst touched upon writing for an audience. \u201cYou have to tell them everything that you want them to know,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re not there reading along, pointing out this mistake or that one. You know, like when you\u2019re trying to impress your significant other by playing guitar and you go \u2018Oh wait, oh wait, oh wait\u2019? You can\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kylee Mejia, a first-year student at UMPI, found her first LDLS to be more interesting than she thought it would be. \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure if I would find interest in the lecture,\u201d Mejia said. \u201cBut then when Dr. Alst began cracking jokes, I got more into it. He made listening to him talk enjoyable, like I wasn\u2019t at a distinguished lecture.\u201d Mejia shared that her experience attending the lecture made her interested to attend more in the future.<\/p>\n

To conclude, Alst shared three readings from his latest novel \u201cSacred Smokes.\u201d His truly inspiring but deeply emotional stories really captured the attention of his audience at UMPI. If you are interested in reading about him further or purchasing his work, Alst\u2019s latest novel can be found for sale on Amazon,\u00a0 https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0826359906\/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sept. 26, 2019, the University of Maine at Presque Isle welcomed LDLS speaker Dr. Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr. After a brief but heartwarming welcome from President Rice, Alst took the stage. Delivering a talk entitled \u201cMatters of Place,\u201d Alst captured his audience\u2019s attention with humor and his apparent passion for writing. Alst graduated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8408,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6084\/revisions\/8408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}