“The world is now our neighborhood, it’s a great gift to our students.” This pronouncement, issued by President Shirley Strum Kenny to a small group of on-campus media representatives was one of many lucid statements eloquently delivered with a slightly southern intonation. Though flanked by a small entourage of her assistants President Kenny’s demeanor is inviting.
The analogy Kenny makes refers to the inaugural year of Stony Brook Southampton and the expansion of Stony Brook Manhattan. These satellite locales will create new relationships and strengthen existing bonds to our main campus, “The Stony Brook Manhattan facility is doubling in size from 15,000 to 30,000 square feet….There is great interest from the Southampton community in using our performance space for events such as ‘Piano Fest.’” As indicated in the newly released Five Year Plan, the office of President Kenny intends to create and strengthen internship opportunities for students in the Theatre and Arts program. Stony Brook Manhattan will be a necessary component of such opportunity by relying on the existing relationships of faculty and organizations in the very heart of the city. “[Stony Brook is] known for our strong science and computer science programs, but not many want to acknowledge that our Music department is nationally renown. I would like to see our Arts and Theatre Programs gain the same prominence,” states Kenny.
Creating and strengthening relationships from Southampton to Manhattan would solidify the prominence of this institution and benefit not just the University student but also the communities across Long Island. When asked about the impact of Stony Brook University on the community of Stony Brook and the surrounding areas, Kenny claimed that retaining graduates and post-docs in the community would be extremely beneficial. The current “brain-drain” trend that sees record numbers of graduates leaving Long Island is due in no small part to “a shift of industry” in the last sixty years. Stony Brook, however, is attempting to combat this exodus of the educated in one of the only ways it can by expanding. Creating internships for residents will undoubtedly lead to employment opportunities closer to home, and as enrollment at Stony Brook University and its satellite colleges increases so will the number of faculty. Considering the high cost of living on Long Island, Kenny cites the initiatives her office is considering for off-setting the expense, including a “second mortgage program” where new faculty are placed in housing “at very low interest” while they acclimate.
The ecological impact of the University was also discussed; “All of our new buildings at South Hampton will meet, at least, the silver LEED’s requirements.” Kenny states, citing the Leadership In Energy and Environmental Design qualifications which is a program established to promote the design, construction, and operation of high performance “green” buildings. “The new energy center is designed to meet platinum.” Explaining the distinction, Kenny states, “The easiest way to reach the ‘green goal’ is to create new buildings, the more difficult, and costly method, is rehabilitating older ones.” Nonetheless, rehabilitation on existing structures is currently underway.
On the precipice of initiating such a visionary plan within the next five years, Kenny was questioned as to how to contend with existing problems in the hopes of preventing these situations from expanding as well. The current lack of on-campus housing in the face of projected increases in enrollment could develop into a dire state. Kenny answered by indicating the lack of Graduate apartments in the surrounding community, and divulged a proposal for a joint housing effort with Farmingdale. As for the record numbers of “tripling” occurring in the undergraduate dorms Kenney stated “We can’t get ahead of the game. The residence halls are self-supported, not state-funded. In the past we have always been able to handle the tripling.” The tripling in the freshman dorms is not due to an increase in the number of freshmen, “It’s because more people are choosing to stay on campus. We will have 170 more rooms by the fall of 2008 [Roosevelt Quad], and 600 more rooms by the fall of 2009.” The increase in the student body will mainly be graduate students, and those numbers are reflected in the Five Year Plan; a projected increase in the student body by at least two thousand within the next five years.
Recently, Kenny created an announcement section titled Speaking of… as a component of her office’s website, “So I could communicate with my own voice, and possibly dissipate the misinformation….the misinformation and gossip, like the housing issue. People have assumed that the new students were undergrads and living on campus. To get information out there before things get distorted.” Though she regularly meets with students over lunch, Kenny admits “It is very difficult to have time on a campus this size and this complex to speak with the student body.”
When questioned about the recent GSO letter to the office of the President, calling for standardization of pay-periods across departments for GA’s, TA’s, and RA’s, Kenny acknowledged the initial delay in payments, but was unaware of the sporadic nature of payment across campus. After looking into the matter, the President’s office replied by stating “Some TA’s will not get their paychecks until October 31st. This is the result of at least one academic department failing to submit the required paperwork in a timely manner. Any department that falls into this category has been/is being notified that this is unacceptable and should not happen again.” Further, “as a result of collective bargaining [through the GSEU], grad students are now on a "lag payroll"--this is common for all state employees--which means they receive their pay two weeks after actually working.”
To stay up to date with Kenny’s dissipation of misinformation and other informative topics, visit the President’s webpage at the following address: http://www.stonybrook.edu/pres/speakingof/