ORONO – Recently deceased University of Maine English professor Burt Hatlen will be memorialized by having a new seminar room named for him. The room is located just a few doors down from his former office in Neville Hall on the UM campus.

UM President Robert Kennedy announced Friday at a poetry conference sponsored by the National Poetry Foundation and the English department that Room 406 in Neville Hall would be renovated and renamed the Burt Hatlen Seminar Room, as a tribute to Hatlen’s many decades of good work with the university, and to the legacy of rigorous, creative academic thought that he left with the UM community.

Hatlen died of pneumonia in January at age 71.

“It is a legacy that speaks volumes about the University of Maine, and the forward-thinking, inclusive, engaging academic community we work to engender every day,” said Kennedy.

Work on the room will commence in the coming weeks, and is expected to be finished in time for the beginning of the fall semester. It will be equipped with state-of-the-art technology, to allow for more opportunities to interact with the public, and to bring in thinkers and writers to engage and enrich students in the English department.

“We plan to include high-tech videoconferencing equipment, which will lead to new and innovative ways to carry forward Burt’s love for teaching, interacting with the public, and bringing to the UMaine community leading scholars who can enhance our abilities to share expertise and new perspectives with those around us,” said Kennedy.

Hatlen’s death in January was a blow to the English department, and a difficult and untimely loss for the greater UM academic community. As one of the founding members of the National Poetry Foundation and a longtime chair of the English department, Hatlen was a respected, important and beloved part of academic life at the university, according to Kennedy.

“He was the embodiment – in many ways – of the central nature of the arts and humanities in our academic life,” said Kennedy. “He was a larger-than-life figure whose commanding presence and gentle eloquence always reminded us of the power of the written word and spoken word.”

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