Stony Brook University

Stony Brook University
Established	1957
Type	Public
Endowment	US$95 million (FYE 2009)[1]
President	Dr. Samuel Stanley Jr
Provost	Eric Kaler
Academic staff	1,902
Students	24,692 (2009 Fall)
Undergraduates	16,395 (2009 Fall)
Postgraduates	8,297 (2009 Fall)
Location	Stony Brook, NY, USA
Campus	Suburban, 1,364 acres (5.5 km²)
Athletics	Stony Brook Seawolves 18 sports teams
Colors	Scarlet Red, Gray [2]
Mascot	Wolfie the Seawolf
Website	www.stonybrook.edu

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

SUNY-Stony Brook is considered a flagship campus of the SUNY system^[3] and is one of the four SUNY university centers in the system. The school has grown dramatically and now has an enrollment of more than 24,700 students.^[4] The University consists of twelve schools and colleges, including the Graduate School. The University also co-manages Brookhaven National Labs under a contract from the U.S. Department of Energy.

History

Previous version of the Stony Brook University logo designed by Milton Glaser

The university was founded in 1957 as the State University College on Long Island with about 140 students.^[5][6] The first temporary campus was at the William Robertson Coe Planting Fields estate in Oyster Bay.^[5] Originally, Stony Brook was a college for preparing secondary school teachers in mathematics and the sciences.^[5] Since 1962, the campus has been located in Stony Brook on land donated by philanthropist Ward Melville.^[5] The original donation consisted of more than 400 acres (1.6 km²), but the campus has since grown to about three times that size.^[5] 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 there. 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.

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 known and marketed as Stony Brook University, with the new logo designed by Milton Glaser.

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 $52 million donation from Charles Wang.^[7] The university constructed Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium for $22 million in 2002.^[7] Recently new apartments have been added for undergraduates. Renovations were recently completed on the original Humanities building and existing undergraduate residence halls. New residence halls continue to be built, such as a new hall just completed according to green-building specifications. Recently, a donation of $60 million was made by retired math professor Dr. James Simons for the construction of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics.

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

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, amounted to more than $95 million in fiscal year 2008/2009; the Foundation manages assets in excess of $235.5 million.^[8]

Campus

West Campus's Academic Mall. Left, Melville Library.

Stony Brook University Medical Center

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. Situated south of New York State Route 25A (a.k.a. North Country Road), the Stony Brook campus is divided into three parts: the 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. In 2010, the first residence hall at Stony Brook meeting the highest standards for green building design was opened. 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 8,300.

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 Residence Halls

West Apartment Dorms

Campus residence halls are grouped into quads, with each quad consisting of three, four, or five separate dorms. Each quad and residence hall has been named after someone who has made a significant contribution to his or her 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 residence hall 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 - Named for architect, Emery Roth

• 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 - named after a builder of the dorm complex

• 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

• Greeley College – Horace Greeley – Newspaper Editor
• Keller College – Helen Keller – Author/Activist
• Wagner College – Robert F. Wagner, Jr. – New York City Mayor
• Stimson College – Henry Stimson - Statesman
• Yang College - Chen Ning Yang - Nobel Prize-winning physicist

Kelly Quad - Ellsworth Kelly - Painter http://studentaffairs.stonybrook.edu/res/kelly.shtml

• 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 the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787.
• Lauterbur College - Paul Lauterbur - Nobel Prize-winning Chemist [2]
• A set of two graduate apartment buildings (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 nine "West Apartments", named only by a letter. Currently, A through I are occupied by students.

Branch campuses

Manhattan

In 2002, the University established a presence in Manhattan with the opening of Stony Brook Manhattan. The original site is located on the 2nd floor of 401 Park Avenue South; a newer operation opened in late 2008 in the adjacent building on the third floor of 387 Park Avenue South. The twin 18,000-square-foot (1,700 m²) facilities allow 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. The original location will close at the end of 2010 but the newer site will continue to provide academic opportunities.

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.^[9] Stony Brook expanded its original program, started in the fall of 2005, when it offered 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, and conservationist Mary Pearl was appointed dean and vice president in March 2009.

As of April 7, 2010, the University has closed the Southampton campus for new admissions and residence.^[10] The reason for this change is due to severe budget cuts by New York State that forced the University to make immediate cuts. Students at Southampton are being given the option to transfer to West Campus to continue with their academic programs.

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.^[11]

Stony Brook is using this property as a Research and Development Park, 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, designed by Flad Architects, commenced in the Summer of 2008 and is is open as of spring 2010.

Proposed South Korean Campus

In May 2009 the SUNY board of trustees granted Dr. Samuel Stanley Jr., authority to conduct negotiation measures towards a partnership campus between Stony Brook and the South Korean government. Stony Brook would be joining other universities in a univerCITY complex, potentially involving other schools such as; North Carolina State University, George Mason, Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, and Boston University. The campus would be a global university with intentions to offer a diverse learning environment while at the same time stimulating the economy in South Korea. With some financial assistance from the South Korean government students may be able to enroll at the proposed new campus in Songdo, South Korea, as early as fall 2011.^[12]

Academics

The University is divided into twelve 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
• the Graduate School

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 research universities in the U.S., currently having 62 members.^[7] In the last three years two Nobel Prizes were awarded to professors for their work conducted at Stony Brook.^[7] The University generates $160 million annually in external research funding and has an annual $4.65 billion economic impact on the region.^[11] Stony Brook co-manages Brookhaven National Laboratory through Brookhaven Science Associates, a 50-50 partnership with Battelle Memorial Institute.^[13] 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.

Research

The School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) is the SUNY center for marine and atmospheric research, education, and public service. More than 300 graduate and undergraduate students from 16 different nations currently work and study at SoMAS. The School'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, the original institute for marine studies, was incorporated into the new School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SOMAS) on June 15, 2007.

Also, the University co-manages Brookhaven National Laboratory, joining an elite group of universities – including the University of California, 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, and the[Nuclear Theory Institute, among others. In the biomedical sciences, Stony Brook houses the Center for Biotechnology and 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."^[14]

The New York Center for Computational Sciences (NYCCS),^[15] formed in 2007, is a joint venture of Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory. Its centerpiece is an 18 rack Blue Gene /L and 2 rack Blue Gene/P massively parallel supercomputer based on the IBM system-on-chip technology, also known as New York Blue Gene supercomputer. In the June 2008 Top 500 supercomputer rankings New York Blue Gene/L was ranked 17th, and Blue Gene/P was ranked 75th.^[16] The total peak performance for both Blue Gene/L and Blue Gene/P consists 103.22 teraflops (trillion floating-point calculations per second).^[17]

Notable research and discoveries at Stony Brook

There have been many notable research projects and important scientific discoveries at Stony Brook.^[18]

Student body

With 27,714 applications, the acceptance rate for 2009 was 39%, with 2,672 freshmen enrolled in 2009.^[19]

Academic Profile of enrolling freshmen

• GPA: 3.3-3.8 (average of 3.6), or 88-95 (mean of 91)^[19]
• 38% in top 10th of graduating class
• 72% in top quarter of graduating class
• 95% in top half of graduating class^[20]

The middle 50% of the 2009 enrolled freshmen had the following score ranges:^{[19] [21]}

• SAT Math: between 590 and 680
• SAT Critical Reading: between 540 and 630
• SAT Writing: between 540 and 630
• ACT: between 25 and 29

The average SAT score for the class of 2014 was 1251/1600

Athletics

Stony Brook Seawolves

The varsity sports teams were formerly known as the Patriots, but were renamed and are currently known as the Seawolves. The Seawolves joined NCAA Division I in 1999. All varsity sports teams compete in the America East Conference with the exception of football, which has been part of the Big South Conference as a football-only member since 2008.

The 2009-2010 season was one of the most successful in school history, with five conference championships. The football team was Big-South Co-champion. Women’s Cross-Country, Men’s Soccer, Men’s Basketball, and Men’s Lacrosse all won America East regular-season championships, with Soccer and Lacrosse also winning post-season conference tournaments.

The basketball and volleyball teams play at the Sports Complex, while the football, soccer and lacrosse teams play at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium, which was selected to host the 2010 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse North Quarterfinals. Beginning in 2011, the baseball team will play its home games in a new stadium, Joe Nathan Field, named after the Minnesota Twins all-star relief pitcher and Stony Brook alum.

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.

Kenneth P LaValle Stadium

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, which 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 Connecticut, Tufts University, the University of Tennessee, and Indiana University."^[22]

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 on Long Island rate in the top 100.^[23] 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.^[24][25] 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."^[24] In January 2007 it was ranked 34th best value among the country’s public institutions for in-state students by Kiplinger's Personal Finance.^[26]

According to the United States National Research Council Rankings of U.S. doctoral programs, Stony Brook is ranked 40th in the average of nonzero scores, 22nd in Biological Sciences, 38th in Arts and Humanities, 44th in Physical Sciences and Math, and 39th in Social and Behavioral Sciences.^[27]

In 2009, Stony Brook was ranked as the 173rd best university in the world by the QS World University Rankings. According to the prestigious 2010 QS World University Rankings, Stony Brook University was ranked 194th moving down 21 positions from 2009. ^[28] Furthermore, the Russian based the Global University Ranking 2009 placed Stony Brook among top 74-77 universities worldwide .^[29]

Stony Brook University is home to 16 of the highest ranked programs in graduate education in the nation, according to US News & World Report’s 2011 "America's Best Graduate Schools." ^[30] The annual rankings focus on programs in Business, Education, Engineering, Law, and Medicine, and reflect data from surveys of more than 1,500 schools and more than 12,000 graduate programs.

Designated among the top 10 programs were Stony Brook's 4th-ranked Nuclear Physics program under the category of "Physics Specialty"; the 6th-ranked Geometry program categorized as a "Mathematics Specialty"; and the 9th-ranked Clinical Psychology program. The University's graduate program in Topology (categorized as a Mathematics specialty) was ranked 12th; the graduate program in Physics ranked 23rd; the graduate program in Mathematics ranked 24th; Earth Science ranked 34th; Materials Science (categorized as an Engineering specialty) was ranked 37th; the Computer Science graduate program was ranked 44th; and the graduate program in Chemistry ranked 49th.

In addition, the following programs remain in the "Top 50", having been previously ranked by US News & World Report's "America's Best Graduate Schools": Physician Assistant ranked 11th, Nursing-Midwifery ranked 29th, Political Science ranked 33rd, Sociology ranked 41st, Psychology ranked 50th and subspecialty: American Politics ranked 20th. 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.^[31][12]

The Wall Street Journal ranked Stony Brook University (SUNY) #8 amongst public universities sending students to elite graduate programs.^[32]

The University was also ranked among the top 152 universities in the world by the Institute for Higher Education in Shanghai.^[33] 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.^[7] In 2007, the Princeton Review (not associated with Princeton University) #12 for Diverse Student Population, and is listed as one of the "Best Northeastern Colleges" and "America's Best Value College".^[34] The fall 2008 America's Best Colleges ranked by Forbes.com placed Stony Brook at #332.^[35]

In 2006-2007 Stony Brook University was ranked the "Fourth Unhappiest School" in the Princeton Review’s “Best 366 Colleges: 2008 Edition.” In 2005, the Princeton Review Journal rated Stony Brook as the second unhappiest school.^[36]

Stony Brook is one of 40 public and private universities in the U.S. named a “Best Buy” by Fiske Guide to Colleges.^[37]

In the 2010 edition of US World News College Rankings, Stony Brook was marked number 97 on their Top National Universities list.

Notable faculty and alumni

Faculty Awards & Honors ^[38]

Fellows of Academic Societies ^[38]

References

External links

• Official website
• The State University of New York (system) website