When artists on Long Island got the call to express their vision of diversity, they unleashed enough color, imagination and graphic flair to fill a park full of billboards.

Now, the 35 supersized winning entries in the "Embracing Our Differences" outdoor exhibit are ready to go on display back where the whole idea started: the Ammerman Campus of Suffolk County Community College. Two-thirds of the entries are by area students; the rest are by professional artists. Each piece is an enlarged reproduction of the original artwork, printed on a 12-by-16-foot section of weatherproof billboard material. Each piece is the artist's personal interpretation of diversity.

"The entries were extremely well done, considering this was the first year we did it," said Steven Schrier, a professor of business law and political science at the Ammerman Campus. Schrier also runs the Suffolk Center on the Holocaust, Diversity and Human Understanding. The center is a nonprofit organization that promotes diversity and tolerance through educational programs, lectures and exhibits. Schrier is a member of the Faculty Association of Suffolk County CC, led by Ellen Schuler Mauk.

The exhibit opened in October in Heckscher Park in Huntington. Selections from the main exhibit then traveled to Commack Middle School and Syosset High School. The exhibit will be on the Ammerman Campus from April 3 to 18.

Individual selections are scheduled to go on display at smaller venues on Long Island, including the Mount Elementary School in the Three Village School District. One of the winning entries came from Mount, where the two children of Steve Klipstein, a professor of English and Holocaust studies at Suffolk's Selden campus and the curator at the Holocaust Center, are also students. Those connections gave Klipstein a strong appreciation of the grasp of diversity in the entries done by children.

"Their lives are much more diverse than ours were and it shows," said Klipstein.

"Embracing Our Differences" is modeled after a similar project done in Florida. Schrier was intrigued by the idea. The 2007 contest was such a success that the center is already planning the 2008 show.

"We were looking for artwork that demonstrates that diversity enriches our lives," Schrier said. "I think it really was a tremendous response."

Among the winning images: a painting of Planet Earth with people and flowers projecting from its surface like rays of colored light; the image of an African-American girl superimposed over blocks of color that disappear into the horizon, with the caption, "What difference does it make?"; and a poster of the words "Respect" and "Diversity" printed in stylized typefaces that frame the photographic portraits of a man and a woman.

For information, go to: www.chdhu.org/eod.

— Darryl McGrath