The situation at Southampton is indeed a tragic one. The campus, which represented an ideal in sustainability, is an enlightened haven of fresh ideas on energy and the environment. The smaller campus meant more intimate classes and a better learning atmosphere. The campus itself is also a picturesque escape from the doldrums of Long Island strip mall life. Its students are a small but passionate bunch, ardently fighting (and rightfully so) for their right to continue to learn at such a wonderful place. The school represents an ideal that Stony Brook may one day hope to attain at its own campus.
But what’s happening at Southampton right now is also the necessary evil that comes when the state dramatically reduces funding for the school. Given the current budgetary conditions that Stony Brook, and all of SUNY, is facing, it is infeasible to think that they can continue running the campus at Southampton and educating the more than 25,000 students at the main campus of Stony Brook.
We would agree with President Stanley on this, but his Southampton opponents question his motives in doing this. According to an April 14 article in The East Hampton Star:
“Mr. Thiele and Mr. LaValle have said that the move to close the Southampton campus, which has been supported by the state university system’s chancellor, Nancy L. Zimpher, is part of a political effort to support the Public Higher Education Innovation and Empowerment Act. It would, among other things, allow the university system to charge different tuition rates for different programs and at different campuses.”
LaValle and Thiele aren’t really trustable, and we didn’t have time to follow up on this with Stanley. Regardless, Stanley’s firm insistence that PHEEIA is the way to make up for SUNY’s budget shortfalls is the wrong sort of thinking that does not need to be reinforced with legislators.
This crisis is indicative of more than a failure of Stony Brook’s administration; it’s a failure on the state’s legislators and governor. Senator LaValle, Assemblyman Thiele and the rest of New York’s legislators were responsible for this when they allowed the tens of millions in cuts to Stony Brook over the last two years. We’re seeing for the first time—and probably not the last—a clash of actions and desire. LaValle and Thiele want to drastically cut funding for SUNY (or not to reverse it) and to keep their constituents happy.
One thing is for certain, though; Stony Brook and the rest of SUNY need more money than they’re getting. If the crisis at Southampton shows legislators anything, it should be that they need to restore the years of slashed funding to SUNY’s budget, they need to make the education of New York’s citizens a higher priority and they need to stop pushing the burden for driving New York’s economy onto the students.
The Stony Brook Press
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Yeah mean “trustworthy”?
i understand your concern with the cuts to suny as a whole, but you seem to be missing a bit of the picture out at Southampton. If the state decided to build a 90 million dollar road and after spending 78 million of the taxpayer’s money, decided not to finish paving it and just walked away, you would be outraged. what dr stanley has done is waste 78 million of our tax dollars. he is closing the school without giving us the payout for our investment. that payoff was supposed to be a generation of young people committed to a more sustainable way of life on long island.
i understand that they have spent 12 million dollars beautifying west campus over the past 2 years. think thats a better investment then 6 million for southampton?
The past administration, Shirley Strum-Kenny and the INTERIM Chancellors were all visionaries and NY State bought into it hook, line and sinker! The State enabled them to waste taxpayer money by allowing the purchase of multiple properties, one being the property in St. James (Flowerfield-once owned by Gyrodyne) which was purchased for $26.3 million via eminient domain. That was 246 acres that was valued at close to $158 million. I understand that battle is still going on in the court system. Stony Brook said I want that property, I’m not going to pay what it’s worth, so NY State used their power by bullying the owner with the inherent power to seize the property with minimal monetary compensation.
The previous administration got greedy and clearly lost sight of giving the students a “quality education” and instead they have been consumed with the quantity of property they now own.
Former President, Shirley Strum-Kenny’s five year plan for 2008-2013 sets an ambitious campus agenda that was to guide Stony Brook’s growth and development in to the next five years. The first two Plans were designed to “fix what needed fixing”; this Plan, to be completed in their 50th anniversary year, was to be a blueprint for the future, which encompasses her goals and aspirations from this time forward.
http://www.stonybrook.edu/sb/5yrplan/
If this is the blueprint for the future, then President Kenny’s goals and asperations were delusional. Now look who is left holding the bag, the students and the taxpayers! This is beyond fixing!
No wonder why she retired in 2009, Stony Brook ran out of money after two years.