Community Building

The deep dive by The Express News Group into the history, status and future of the Stony Brook Southampton campus over the past several weeks, culminating with a standing room only Express Sessions panel discussion on January 11, resulted in a lot of takeaways.

Most notably, was a sense of community — on multiple levels. The future success of the college, warmly embraced by not only scores of alumni in the region, but South Fork residents enamored by the school’s role in the history of the area, is dependent on the combined efforts of all of its stakeholders: Stony Brook University, elected officials and representatives, the Southampton Hospital Foundation and Association, generous benefactors and the community at large.

The university has taken a lot of heat — deservedly — over the past year due to the poor state of the facilities at the Shinnecock Hills campus. More than a dozen buildings, including the historic windmill and Southampton Hall, have fallen so deep into disrepair that they have been condemned — leading State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., an alumnus of the college and one of its strongest champions, to declare last year that Stony Brook had become “the biggest slumlord on the East End.”

The state of the campus gave the impression that the university was indifferent, giving many people the impression that its focus was solely on the main campus, and Southampton was going to be left swinging in the wind to one day soon experience the same fate — closure — that Southampton College did under its parent, Long Island University.

But at the Express Sessions event, officials from the university, who all traveled together by bus to get to the Southampton Village event, demonstrated their enthusiasm for the future of the campus — including an exciting new proposal from Governor Kathy Hochul’s office to build affordable, workforce housing at the site — as well as previously underreported reasoning for the sad shape of the facilities. The university as a whole has about $2 billion in deferred maintenance costs — funds that come from the state to keep the lights on. Further, Stony Brook inherited a campus already in disrepair from Long Island University when it took over in 2005.

Officials said they have prioritized educational programming over improving facilities at Shinnecock Hills in the past, but also noted that the university has begun to receive more maintenance money from the state in recent years and has made solid investments in the marine science building in Southampton. Although a little late, it was encouraging to see the myth of an uncaring administration dispelled.

Also encouraging at last week’s panel was the enthusiasm displayed for the future of the campus, by all the stakeholders, but especially by the university administrators, led by Wendy Pearson, Stony Brook University’s recently hired vice president for strategic initiatives, who seemed committed to a fresh start for the campus.

Part of that renaissance will include embracing Hochul’s housing plan. It’s too early to say what the housing plan will look like, how many units could be built and who, specifically they would be occupied by, but the excitement by both the university brass and local lawmakers Thiele and State Senator Anthony Palumbo, was palpable. While the plan will not solve the region’s housing crisis, it will certainly help make a dent, while providing the university the opportunity to provide workforce housing not only for the general community, but specifically for employees of Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, which in recent years has struggled to maintain a full workforce because of housing and traffic issues on the East End.

But more than that, Pearson pointed out, housing on the Shinnecock Hills campus would go a long way to create a self-enclosed community there, a thriving and bustling neighborhood or hamlet of its own that would only further heighten its identity, and a community that would only be made stronger when the new hospital is built there.

While stalled by both the pandemic and some staffing changes, fundraising for a new hospital on the college campus has begun to pick up again, according to Ken Wright, the chairman of the Southampton Hospital Association, which will build the facility. He estimated that if all goes right, a groundbreaking could happen within six years. In the meantime, the university, which is hamstrung until the new facility is built, has increased the number of health science course and students at the campus in anticipation of a future hospital.

The bottom line is that the future seems bright for Stony Brook Southampton and Southampton Hospital.

But key to the future of Stony Brook on the South Fork is both communication and community. Local officials and residents have affection for the campus, and need the university to keep them informed about what’s going on there.

Pearson detailed plans to create an advisory committee of people from both the campus and the wider community to exchange ideas and help set a course for the future.

That’s a fantastic start, and a surefire way to ensure that all the various segments of stakeholders can grow into a single, larger community and guarantee the success of the school well into the future.