President Kenny to retire from Stony Brook

Recommend

Comment

Email this article

Print this article

Get news alerts

RSS Feeds

Share Digg Mixx Linked In Facebook Twitter Delicious

Dr. Shirley Strum Kenny, the president of Stony Brook University and one of the primary architects of the university’s takeover of the former Southampton College, announced on June 18 that she will retire at the end of the 2008-09 school year.

Dr. Kenny, 73, announced her departure in a mass e-mail to faculty and staff at the college late that night, and later said that she plans to relocate to Washington, D.C., where her four children live.

“These have been the most amazing and satisfying 14 years of my professional career,” said Dr. Kenny, a literary scholar, teacher and administrator, who was the first woman and the first non-scientist to be elected Stony Brook’s president. “The university has come very far, and I take great pride in what has been accomplished with the outstanding teamwork and commitment of every member of the Stony Brook family.”

“This is the right time for me to step down,” she continued. “It will be 15 years at the end of my tenure, and that is quite a lengthy term for a university president. I look forward to spending more time with my family, and becoming more engaged in the national debate on the future of education in America.”

On a national level, Dr. Kenny had previously launched and chaired the Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University, helping to publish a landmark study titled “Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’s Research Universities.” She also received the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal last year. She said that moving to Washington, where she already keeps a house, would be “like going home.”

Dr. Kenny said that her top priorities for the coming year include continuing to shepherd the Southampton campus through its early phase of development and developing a research partnership between the university, and the Brookhaven and Cold Spring Harbor laboratories.

She said that at Southampton she plans next year to solidify the creative writing program, reopen the Avram Center as a cultural center starting with a music series this summer, and continue to work on a master plan for the Southampton campus.

“Under Dr. Kenny’s leadership, the university has earned the reputation as one of the country’s outstanding institutions of higher education,” said State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, who worked with Dr. Kenny to finalize the state’s creation of a Stony Brook campus in Southampton. “I give her enormous credit for taking chances on the advancement of new technologies and venturing out into new ground in order to ensure Stony Brook University’s competitiveness and desirability well into the future.”