Stony Brook Announces Plans To Add Programs, Some Residency At Southampton Campus

Publication: The East Hampton Press
By Will James Mar 1, 2011 6:13 PM

Seven months after budget cuts devastated Stony Brook Southampton, stripping the campus of most of its academic programs and undergraduate students, Stony Brook University officials on Monday announced plans to roll out expanded arts and marine science programs this fall.

The university will add theater, film and visual arts courses to the long-standing graduate creative writing program at the 82-acre satellite campus in Shinnecock Hills, under the banner of “Southampton Arts.” A new undergraduate residency program in the marine sciences, “Semester by the Shore,” will grant students from across the country access to the campus’s research vessels and waterfront marine lab and allow them to live on campus, according to a press release from the university.

The announcement carries the first solid plans the university has made public since last April, when it abruptly unveiled budget cuts that closed the campus’s dormitories and forced most of its undergraduate students to relocate to the university’s main campus that August. Stony Brook University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D., has said the campus had been atrophying financially since the university took it over in 2006 and began running it as a small residential college centered on undergraduate environmental sustainability studies.

In Monday’s press release, the university stressed that Southampton Arts will “leverage the successful business model” of the graduate creative writing program under director Robert Reeves. An associated undergraduate arts residency program for students from other institutions, which the university said it is looking to unveil in the fall of 2012, “will avoid the administrative costs associated with four-year undergraduate resident and academic life,” Provost Eric Kaler is quoted as saying.

“These short-term residencies are the most cost-effective way to restore an undergraduate presence and to 
build enrollment quickly,” he continued.

The announcement came days after State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. announced that the parties involved in a legal dispute over the budget cuts had put their litigation on hold for 30 days as negotiations over the future of the campus progressed.

Students who were forced to relocate and supporters of the campus filed suit last May, claiming that the cuts were illegal. As the litigation went on, university officials and local lawmakers, including Mr. LaValle, Mr. Thiele and U.S. Representative Tim Bishop, were in talks over the future of the campus. Discussions were known to have long focused on many of the ideas Stony Brook announced on Monday, including the expansion of graduate arts programs and a marine sciences residency program for outside students.

That announcement, made in the form of a press release from Mr. LaValle’s office last Friday, marked a shift in tone for the 
legislators, who lambasted the university for months after the cuts first became public last April.

“I am pleased that the administration understands the importance of the Southampton campus to the community and [the State University of New York] itself,” Mr. LaValle said in the release. “We have made important strides in the past three months.”

Although a State Supreme Court Justice ruled in favor of the students last August, stating that the university shirked a legal requirement when it failed to consult with a state-appointed advisory committee before announcing the cuts, there were still motions pending on either side of the litigation.

“With today’s agreement to adjourn all litigation for 30 days, I believe we have taken a major step forward,” Mr. Thiele said. “There are still intricate discussions remaining about the future of the Southampton campus. Any resolution must fulfill the potential of the Southampton campus. I am optimistic that we can find such a resolution.”

When reached on Monday, shortly before Stony Brook University’s announcement, Katie Osiecki, a 19-year-old Sag Harbor native who is one of the six plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said it appears unlikely that she and her fellow sustainability students would be returned to 
Stony Brook Southampton as part of the negotiations. The university, she said, is considering giving the sustainability program a permanent home at the chemistry building in Stony Brook. Still, she said, she will see victory in the revival of her former campus, whatever form it takes.

“I think the most important thing is to have a college on the East End,” said Ms. Osiecki, who is enrolled at the main campus in a major called Environmental Design, Policy and Planning.

In Stony Brook’s press release, Dr. Stanley was quoted as giving credit to an advisory committee that convened last July to brainstorm fiscally sustainable uses for the campus. The emphasis on arts and marine sciences, according to the university, are meant to take advantage of the historical resources of the East End.

“Through the excellent work of the Southampton Advisory Committee led by Provost Eric Kaler and Diana Weir, and innovative concepts put forth by Robert Reeves, Director of the MFA in Writing and Literature Program, and Minghua Zhang, Dean of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, we will be able to offer these excellent revenue neutral programs in which we can take advantage of the unique resources of the Southampton location,” Dr. Stanley said. “We have made excellent progress and plan to roll out some new programs in September.”