Dorian Tomaras blends academics with the artistic

Monroe. The class salutatorian will head to Germany in the fall to attend Bard College Berlin.

| 29 Jun 2025 | 04:08

This year’s Monroe-Woodbury High School salutatorian, Dorian Tomaras, will be packing his bags and taking his artistic and academic ambitions to Germany.

Attending Bard College Berlin this fall, Tomaras, 17, from Monroe, will study humanities, the arts and social thought, an interdisciplinary degree. He said he was always intrigued by a liberal arts curriculum, blending aspects of humanities and the arts, permitting him to seek knowledge through a “broader method.”

Tomaras described being named salutatorian as an honor.

“For the most part, I just want to thank everyone who got me here, my teachers, my parents, my friends,” he said. “Everyone really played such a major role in getting me to this point. And I think if it weren’t for everyone else I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near here. So I’m just really grateful for the involvement and the kindness and the compassion of everyone in helping me to get to this point and providing me with a structure.”

He said the idea to go to school abroad came about as he was looking into liberal arts schools and was sent information about the Berlin-based institution. It is also tied to the various historical genres he has grown increasingly interested in, like Eastern European Jewish studies.

Making an impact both in the halls of school and in the community, Tomaras is a member of Monroe-Woodbury’s literary magazine, “Pendragon” and volunteers for the Trans Closet of the Hudson Valley, a local organization that offers free clothing and other accessories to members of the Hudson Valley’s transgender and nonbinary communities. He is also the captain of the math team, a member of the National Honors Society, part of Mu Alpha Theta (an international math honors society for high school students), and a member of the Spanish Honors Society.

After he graduates from college, Tomaras plans to continue pursuing higher education with a master’s or doctoral degree. He said he has considered teaching in higher education or exploring organizational work, but the one thing he knows for certain is that he wants to continue his historical studies in some form.

Tomaras said there have been many teachers he loved over the years in high school. But at the end of last year, one of his favorite teachers, Mark Filie, his “Pendragon” advisor who also taught student authors seminar and creative writing, retired.

“It was very hard emotionally for me to go through that because he was just such a mentor-figure to me,” Tomaras said. “I really came to rely upon him for guidance and support and creative advice, and I felt like I learned so much from him.”

While he said his speech was still a “work in progress” and subject to change, one theme Tomaras hopes to spotlight is the “importance of building up community” — something he said Monroe-Woodbury excels at.

This year’s art show, Tomaras said, was one of his favorite high school memories. As a 5-credit art major pursuing a Regents Diploma of Distinction in the Arts, Tomaras said he mainly does 2-dimensional pieces, with charcoal and oil pastel being his favorites.

A self-proclaimed “huge bibliophile” with a very long Good Reads list, he said one book he consistently returns to through his art pieces is “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde. He said the work was very foundational to his self-perception.

“For me, reading that book was just so transformative very early on when I was still trying to figure out my identity, and I’ve taken that with me,” Tomaras said.

He also emphasized the importance of embracing one’s inner child, recalling his own perfectionism over the past four years. He said it would have made a difference, especially early in his high school experience, to grant himself more permission to “take time to absorb all of the wonderful memories that I made.”

As he prepares to head abroad, he said he is excited to immerse himself in what is a small, but diverse and largely international campus.

“I’m really looking forward to hearing from everyone and exploring different lived experiences and seeing all of the different perspectives that people have had based upon where they are coming from and where they are in life,” Tomaras said. “I am really looking forward to that.”