Adelphi professor Dominick Cavallo dies

Dominick Cavallo was one of those professors whose influence spread well past the classrooms where he held students in rapt attention.

His grasp and interpretations of American history, particularly the turbulent 1960s, impressed his academic peers and inspired the students who looked to him as a teacher and relied on him as an advocate for their concerns at Adelphi University.

Cavallo, of Sea Cliff, who spent three decades at the Garden City university and was a respected educator and trusted administrator, died Friday of multiple myeloma. He was 66.

"Adelphi will honor his legacy through our commitment to the highest academic standards and active engagement in civic-minded initiatives," said Adelphi president Robert A. Scott.

Cavallo, a native of Williamsburg who moved to Shirley when he was a teenager, started his sojourn at Adelphi in 1980 as a coordinator for non-traditional learning. He became dean of the precursor to University College in 1985, and a full professor of history in 1988.

In 1999, he took on administrative duties, becoming vice provost for academic affairs and planning. He assumed the post of acting provost in 2000, but returned to teaching in 2001.

He previously taught at Howard University, the University of Rhode Island and University of Dayton.

He most liked teaching "The Sixties," having been an observer-participant in the era's radical movements and critical moments, such as the three-day upstate Woodstock concert in August 1969 that has come to signify the decade's music and sensibility.

"It was his time," said JoAnn Smith, Cavallo's partner of two decades and president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Nassau County. "He was a product of the '60s. He was at Woodstock and he was part of the counterculture during that time that revolutionized the country at that moment."

Smith said Cavallo loved rock and blues music, cooking and sampling new red wine, that he was a fine cook and adroit speaker who brought to conversations an encyclopedic knowledge of world history to make sense of current events.

"He is the love of my life," Smith said. "And the years we spent together were simply not enough."

Besides Smith, Cavallo is survived by sister Jo Cavallo of Manhattan; brother Sam Cavallo of Shirley; Smith's children, Alex Smith of Long Island City and Andrea Willer of Manhattan; and Smith's two grandchildren.

A gathering in Cavallo's honor is Friday at 11 a.m. at The Metropolitan in Glen Cove.