Stony Brook University

State University of New York at Stony Brook, commonly known as Stony Brook University, is a public research university located in Stony Brook, New York, United States (on the North Shore of Long Island, about 55 miles (89 km) east of Manhattan, New York).

Stony Brook is one of the four university centers in the State University of New York system, and has an enrollment of more than 22,000 students. The University operates two SUNY-wide research centers (the Institute for Theoretical Physics, and the Marine Sciences Research Center). The University also operates Brookhaven National Labs under contract from the U.S. Department of Energy.

History

The university was founded in 1957 as the State University College on Long Island with about 100 students enrolled.^[3] The first temporary campus was at the William Robertson Coe Planting Fields estate in Oyster Bay.^[3] Originally, Stony Brook was a college for preparing secondary school teachers in mathematics and the sciences.^[3] Since 1962, the campus has been located in Stony Brook on land donated by philanthropist Ward Melville.^[3] The original donation consisted of over 400 acres (1.6 km²), but the campus has since grown to about three times that size.^[3] Among the four SUNY University Centers, Stony Brook is the only one that was founded after the SUNY system was established.

The Stony Brook campus was initially concentrated around what was called G-Quad (now Mendelsohn Quad), and almost all offices were located here. Classes took place in the Humanities building, and some classes were still offered at Oyster Bay. However, the 1960s and 1970s witnessed rapid growth under university president John S. Toll. More buildings were erected on campus, and academic programs and enrollment grew.

In the 1990s the school underwent a project to revitalize the campus. Numerous buildings were renovated, including the Student Activities Center, as well as each residential quad. More recently, the school completed construction of a massive Charles B. Wang Asian American Center that was funded, in part, by a $50 million dollar donation from Charles Wang.^[4] The university also constructed Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium for $22 million in 2002.^[4] Recently new apartments have been added for undergraduates. Renovations were recently completed on the original Humanities building, and new apartments continue to be built. Recently, a donation of $60 Million was made by retired math professor Dr. James Simons for the construction of the Simons Center for Physics and Geometry.

Due to its long history as a concert venue it was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame on October 15, 2006.

In 2007, there was a talk among SBU officials, including the University Police Assistant Chief, about the safety issues,^[5] including one robbery at knife-point^[6] According to a report by WCBS-TV, students were worried over the three attacks on campus.^[7]

Although Stony Brook is a state institution, private philanthropy plays an ever-increasing role in the development of the university. Stony Brook's endowment, managed by the Stony Brook Foundation, currently amounts to over $201 million.^[8]

Academics

The Main area of Campus Life

The University is divided into numerous schools:

• College of Arts and Sciences
• College of Business
• College of Engineering and Applied Sciences
• School of Dental Medicine
• School of Health Technology and Management
• School of Journalism
• School of Marine & Atmospheric Sciences
• School of Medicine
• School of Nursing
• School of Professional Development
• School of Social Welfare

Stony Brook was one of ten national universities awarded a National Science Foundation recognition award in 1998 for their integration of research and education. In 2001 it became a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an invitation-only organization of the top 62 research universities in the U.S.^[4] In the last three years two Nobel Prizes were awarded to professors for their work conducted at Stony Brook.^[4] The University generates $160 million annually in external research funding and has an annual $4.65 billion economic impact on the region.^[9] Stony Brook co-manages Brookhaven National Laboratory through Brookhaven Science Associates, a 50-50 partnership with Battelle Memorial Institute.^[10] Stony Brook is also one of only two public schools in New York to have a medical school and a dental school, the other being University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.

State University of New York Research Centers

The Marine Sciences Research Center (MSRC) is the State University of New York's center for marine and atmospheric research, education, and public service. More than 200 graduate and undergraduate students from 16 different nations currently work and study at MSRC. The Center's students study coastal oceanographic processes and atmospheric sciences in a natural and academic setting that offers abundant opportunities for conducting field work, solving real problems in both local and distant environments, and learning to express their opinions in the weekly seminars. The Marine Sciences Research Center was incorporated into the new School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SOMAS) on June 15, 2007. The new school also includes the newly approved marine undergraduate majors and faculty at Southampton.

Also, the University co-manages Brookhaven National Laboratory, joining an elite group of universities – including Berkeley, University of Chicago, Cornell, MIT, and Princeton University – that run federal laboratories. In the Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering area, some of the research centers of Stony Brook University are the Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics, the Nuclear Theory Institute, among others. In the biomedical sciences, the Center for Biotechnology, the Institute of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, among many others. In March, 2008, the University received $60 million endowment from James Simons to establish the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics.

In July 2007 Stony Brook "won a grant from the Department of Defense to devise ways to prevent terrorists from corrupting computers, and another from the Department of Homeland Security to design a system to detect radiation without triggering false alarms."^[11]

The campus

Main campus

The main alley of Stony Brook West Campus

Stony Brook University Hospital

The main campus is located at the geographic midpoint of Long Island, approximately 60 miles (97 km) east of New York City and 60 miles (97 km) west of Montauk. It is split into three portions: West Campus, East Campus, and South Campus.

The West Campus houses the majority of academic buildings and campus housing. It is the location of the original buildings at the Stony Brook site, including Mendelsohn Quad, which now serves as a residential quad. In addition to this quad, there are five other residential quads located on the West Campus, in addition to apartments for both graduates and undergraduates. The residential quads surround the Academic Mall, which contains the academic buildings. The center of the mall is the Frank Melville Jr. Memorial Library, and around this building are academic buildings housing the arts, sciences, and engineering departments. The Student Activities Center is the focus of campus life and is located across from the library. The Staller Center sits adjacent to the library and contains the largest movie screen in Long Island's Suffolk County. The Stony Brook Sports Complex holds various facilities for athletics and the largest gym in Suffolk County with a capacity of more than 5,000 people. Behind the Sports Complex sits the Kenneth P. Lavalle Stadium, which seats 8,136.

The East Campus is separated from the West Campus by Nicolls Road. It is home to the Stony Brook University Medical Center. The hospital is the largest in Suffolk County, and the attached Health Sciences Center (HSC) and Basic Science Tower (BST) houses numerous laboratories, the medical school, and numerous Allied Health programs. The Chapin Graduate Apartment Complex and the Long Island High Technology Incubator can also be found on the East Campus.

The South Campus is the smallest of the three and is separated from the West Campus by the Ashley Schiff Forest Preserve. It is home to the School of Dental Medicine, the Marine Sciences Research Center, and the Cody Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities.

Campus dormitories

Campus dormitories are grouped into quads, with each quad consisting of three, four, or five separate dorms. Each quad and dorm has been named after someone who has made a significant contribution to their respective field in some way. However, in an effort to merge with the history of New York and Long Island, the person being recognized had to be either from New York/Long Island or have made their contribution to New York/Long Island. Each building (dormitory) is named after that specific person and referred to as a college. Below are the names of the colleges, followed by the name of the honored contributor.

H Quad - Like "G Quad" (now Mendelsohn Quad) originally intended to be a "placeholder" until a suitable name came along.

• Benedict College – Ruth Benedict – Anthropologist
• Langmuir College – Irving Langmuir – Chemist/Physicist
• James College – Henry James – Author

Mendelsohn Quad - Harold Mendelsohn - University Employee

• Irving College – Washington Irving – Author
• O’Neill College – Eugene O’Neill – Playwright
• Ammann College – Othmar Ammann – Structural Engineer
• Gray College – Asa Gray – Botanist

Roth Quad - Philip Roth - Novelist

• Hendrix College – Jimi Hendrix - Musician
• Gershwin College – George Gershwin – Composer
• Whitman College – Walt Whitman – Poet/Journalist
• Cardozo College – Benjamin Cardozo – Lawyer/Jurist
• Mount College – William Sidney Mount - Painter

Tabler Quad - Pat Tabler - New York Mets/New York Yankees Ballplayer

• Toscanini College – Arturo Toscanini – Conductor
• Sanger College – Margaret Sanger – Birth Control Activist
• Dreiser College – Theodore Dreiser – Author
• Douglass College – Frederick Douglass – Abolitionist/Reformer
• Hand College – Billings Learned Hand – United States Judge

Roosevelt Quad - Eleanor Roosevelt - First Lady to Franklin D. Roosevelt

• Horace Greeley College – Horace Greeley – Newspaper Editor
• Helen Keller College – Helen Keller – Author/Activist
• Wagner College – Robert F. Wagner, Jr. – New York Senator
• Stimson College – Henry Stimson - Statesman

Kelly Quad - Ellsworth Kelly - Painter

• Baruch College – Bernard Baruch – Stock Broker/Statesman
• Eisenhower College – Dwight D. Eisenhower – U.S. President
• Schick College – Béla Schick - Pediatrician
• Dewey College – Thomas E. Dewey – New York Governor
• Hamilton College – Alexander Hamilton – NY Representative on Declaration of Independence

• A set of two graduate dorms (A & B), named the Schomburg Apartments, are named after Arturo Schomburg. Schomburg was a historian, writer, and activist, known as "The Father of Black History." He later moved to Harlem, New York in the late 19th century.
• A second set of graduate apartments (A - L), named the Chapin Apartments, are named after Harry Chapin. Chapin was an Academy Award winning singer and songwriter from Greenwich Village, New York, who later died in a car accident on the Long Island Expressway near Jericho, NY. He was 38 years of age.
• Also on campus are eight "West Apartments", named only by a letter. Currently, A through I are occupied by students. Plans and construction for a six story, six hundred bed residential complex between Kelly and Roosevelt Quads are underway as well, scheduled for the 2010-2011 school year.

Branch campuses

Manhattan

Main article: Stony Brook Manhattan

In 2002 the University established a presence in Manhattan with the opening of Stony Brook Manhattan. It is located on the 2nd floor of 401 Park Avenue South. The 18,000-square-foot (1,700 m²) facility allows Stony Brook to offer professional and graduate courses targeted towards students in the city, as well as undergraduate courses during the summer and winter sessions. It is currently being expanded with another floor in an adjoining building.

Southampton

Main article: Stony Brook Southampton

On March 24, 2006, the University completed the purchase of the 81 acre Southampton College (on the east end of Long Island) property from Long Island University with the intent to develop it as a full college campus focusing on academic programs related to the environment and sustainability.^[12] Since then Stony Brook expanded its program originally started in the fall of 2005 when it started offering an undergraduate marine sciences program, with teaching and research facilities at the campus leased from Long Island University. An enrollment of about 2,000 students is expected within the next five years. Professor Martin Schoonen was appointed interim dean of Southampton campus on August 3, 2006.

Research and Development Campus

On November 3, 2005, the University announced that it had formally acquired 246 acres (1.00 km²) of the adjacent Flowerfield property, originally owned by the Gyrodyne Company of America, through eminent domain, three years after the University had expressed its desire to acquire the property.^[9]

Stony Brook intends to use this property as a Research and Development Campus, similar to other university-affiliated science parks around the country. The campus will ultimately house ten new buildings. The first building, the Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology, was completed in October 2008. Construction for the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center commenced in the Summer of 2008 and is expected to be completed by 2009.

Athletics

Main article: Stony Brook Seawolves

The varsity sports teams were formerly known as the Patriots, but were renamed and are currently known as the Seawolves. The basketball and volleyball teams play at the Sports Complex, while the football, soccer and lacrosse teams now play at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium. There are numerous other fields located in the northern portion of West Campus that are used by the baseball and softball teams, as well as track, tennis and other sports.

Stony Brook joined NCAA Division I in 1999 and all varsity sports teams compete in the America East Conference with the exception of football. The football team competed as a Division I-AA Independent in 2007, after leaving the Northeast Conference at the end of the 2006 season. Stony Brook joined the Big South Conference as a football-only member in 2008.

Recent successes include the men's soccer team winning the 2005 America East Championship and reaching the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament, and the football team sharing the 2005 Northeast Conference Championship with Central Connecticut State University.

The athletics department produces a weekly television news show called The Sports Report, and is available as a podcast.

Rankings

In 2005 "Stony Brook was one of 33 universities in The Center's Top American Research Universities that ranked 26th through 50th nationally in at least one of the measures, and the University scored better in the category than such institutions as the University of Massachusetts, Tufts University, the University of Tennessee, and Indiana University."^[13]

In August 2008 U.S. News & World Report ranked SBU tied for 45th in the category of top public national universities and for 96th in the U.S. News rating of “best national universities, the only school in Long Island rate in the top 100.^[14] Previously in August 2007 U.S. News & World Report, for the sixth time, ranked SBU among the top 100 national universities in the United States and among the top 50 public national universities.^[15][16] The University was tied for 96th in the U.S. News rating of "best national universities," and tied for 45th in the category of "top public national universities."^[15] In January 2007 it was ranked 34th best value among the country’s public institutions for in-state students by Kiplinger's Personal Finance.^[17]

In 2008, Stony Brook is ranked as the 127th best university in the world, placing it in the top 1%—out of more than 8,300—by the London-based Times Higher Education Supplement.^[18]

Stony Brook University is cited eight times as being among the best in the nation in the current rankings of professional schools in US News & World Report’s 2009 edition of “America’s Best Graduate Schools.” Stony Brook’s Clinical Psychology program was ranked 9th tying Penn State and Duke University and ahead of such universities as Northwestern and Vanderbilt. In addition, the Nuclear Physics program (categorized as a Physics specialty) ranked 4th, ahead of Yale, Columbia, and the California Institute of Technology. Stony Brook’s program in Geometry (categorized as a Mathematics specialty) was ranked No. 6, ahead of Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, and Yale. The University’s Physics graduate program ranked 23rd tying with Penn State; the Mathematics program ranked 24th, tying Rutgers, University of California San Diego, and the University of Washington, ahead of Rice, Purdue, Carnegie Mellon, Ohio State, Georgia Institute of Technology and Indiana. In addition, the Computer Science graduate program was ranked 31st tying with NYU, Rutgers, and Ohio State; the Biological Science program ranked 48th tying with Brandeis and Rice; and, the Physician Assistant program ranked 11th ahead of Northeastern.^[19] In addition, the philosophy department is considered to be among the top programs in the United States for the study of continental philosophy, particularly in the area of phenomenology.^[20][2]

The University was also ranked among the top 152 universities in the world by the Institute for Higher Education in Shanghai.^[21] It was also ranked among the top 100 universities in North and Latin America, with the Institute grouping it in the category of number 58-77. Joining Stony Brook in that grouping were such institutions as Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and Virginia.

In 2001 it became a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an invitation-only organization of the top 62 research universities in the U.S.^[4]

In 2007, the Princeton Review (not associated with Princeton University) ranked Stony Brook #1 for least happy students, #12 for Diverse Student Population, and is listed as one of the "Best Northeastern Colleges" and "America's Best Value College".^[22]

Names and logos

Throughout its first 50 years, Stony Brook has undergone a number of changes in its logo and on how it is named. In 1957, while it was still located in Oyster Bay, it was officially called the State University College of Long Island at Oyster Bay. A year after, it was changed to State University Center on Long Island at Oyster Bay.

When it moved to its present campus in Stony Brook in 1962, it became officially known as the State University of New York at Stony Brook, or SUNY-Stony Brook (SUNY-SB). Another form used in documents was University at Stony Brook (USB) as can be seen in one of the previous logos.

Today, the university is more popularly known and marketed as Stony Brook University, with the new logo designed by Milton Glaser.

Notable faculty and alumni

For greater information, see People associated with State University of New York at Stony Brook

Faculty Awards & Honors
Nobel Prize in Economics
Nobel Prize in Physics
Nobel Prize in Medicine
Pulitzer Prize
Crafoord Prize
Fields Medal in Mathematics
National Medal of Science
National Medal of Technology
Benjamin Franklin Medal
National Book Critics Circle Award
Grammy Award
Chevalier de l’Ordre National de Merit de la France
Chevalier de l’Ordre National de Madagascar
NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Award
NASA Distinguished Service Medal
Obie Award
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Award
Humboldt Research Award for Senior U.S. Scientists
Principe de Asturias Prize
Fellows of the Royal Society (4)
MacArthur Foundation Fellows (3)
Members of the National Academy of Engineering (3)
Members of the National Academy of Sciences (13)
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (12)
Guggenheim Fellows (71)
Fulbright Fellows (54)
Sloan Foundation Fellows (41)
Rockefeller Foundation Fellows (11)
Institute of Medicine Members (3) ^[23]

Notable research and discoveries at Stony Brook

There have been many notable research projects and important scientific discoveries at Stony Brook.^[24]

See also

• The Stony Brook Press
• Stony Brook Statesman
• WUSB-FM — 90.1 FM, Stony Brook, NY
• SBU TV — Stony Brook University Television
• AA E-Zine
• Stony Brook Independent
• Sigma Beta

References

External links

• Official website
• The State University of New York
• Club Listing - A general listing of student clubs at Stony Brook University

• Stony Brook University is at coordinates