Q&A: Stony Brook University's Sixth President On The Future Of The Southampton Campus

When Dr. Maurie McInnis arrived in July 2020 to serve as Stony Brook University’s sixth president, she found a school — and a society — swamped by a pandemic.

A cultural historian with a long resume of academic leadership at major colleges, including, most recently, the University of Texas at Austin, she likely had a great many big ideas now that she finally was in the president’s chair. Much of it, sadly, had to be set aside, replaced with crisis management.

“There’s a small group of us who all became presidents right at the start of the pandemic,” said McInnis, 56, in a Zoom conversation last week. “And we’ve all spent a lot of time talking about this. For me, personally, coming into the Stony Brook community, even among that group, I was very unique — because Stony Brook, New York City, Long Island, they were at the epicenter of the first outbreak of coronavirus in the U.S.”

She found herself, she said, in “a community of individuals, health care professionals and everybody else on campus who is so dedicated to the well-being of this community, who’s working together as team, who’s problem-solving. Who’s energized, even in this incredibly challenging, stressful crisis situation.”

McInnis discussed her vision for Stony Brook University, the future of the school’s campus in Shinnecock Hills, where 540 students are currently registered for one or more classes, and the university’s role in the region’s health care future.

Q: When you described Stony Brook University to your friends and family when you took this job, how did you describe the university?

You know, that’s a really great question. I was attracted to Stony Brook University because for a very long time I have known what a great institution it was for providing innovative, cutting-edge research and health care that’s deeply integrated to the mission of serving New Yorkers.

And I would say one of the other things that was enormously attractive about Stony Brook is it does that while also serving an incredibly diverse group of students, many of whom are first generation, many of whom are lower socioeconomic status, and they come to Stony Brook and they get an amazing education, and they go on to have great lives and careers. And being part of that joint mission of both education research and innovative health care was enormously attractive.

Q: Let’s talk about Stony Brook Southampton. When Shirley Strum Kenny served as president from 1994 to 2009, she brought a vision for the campus in Shinnecock Hills that focused on a sustainability program, changing the curriculum to reflect that, as well as making the campus a green campus. When Dr. Samuel Stanley took over as president in 2009, the focus seemed to switch significantly toward medicine and science, and that was reflected at the eastern campus.

So you come in with more of a background in the humanities. How is that to be reflected in the way you take the university forward, and what you see for Stony Brook Southampton in particular?

So I will say, since I’ve come here, I’ve really tried to spend a lot of time at Stony Brook Southampton and think about what its place is, both in Southampton and its place as part of Stony Brook. And I think it’s really important that we continue to think about what the unique alignments for that campus and that community are, and how that fits into the larger Stony Brook.

So the East End has long had a tradition of a place where the arts have flourished, and a place where artists have retreated to an order to find inspiration, a community of like-minded creative individuals. And that is one of the reasons why having such a vibrant arts program at the Southampton campus makes an enormous amount of sense and why we’re really dedicated to continuing to see that be part of the campus.

And those programs really flourished in this fall. We will be sort of re-branding all of those programs together as part of what we’re calling the Lichtenstein Center, in honor of Dorothy Lichtenstein and her real support for the arts broadly, but also for the arts at Stony Brook University.

Another area where I think our presence in Southampton can make an enormous difference in the lives of those who live on the East End is our role in health care. A number of years ago, [Southampton Hospital] became affiliated with Stony Brook University. We continue to focus on how can we improve health care for those living on the East End.

And an important piece of that has also become making that campus integrated into the educational opportunities for people who are interested in health care careers. Many of whom may be local residents and are interested in a health care career on the East End.

So there’s a great synergy there in having our health professions programs, where they’re getting opportunities in the East End locations, not just ours but in many of the other health care settings on the East End. And, hopefully, that also helps us recruit an even more vibrant and better educated health care workforce for the East End.

A third really important component, and what’s really special and unique about the Southampton campus is — it’s there, right? It’s on the southern shore. It gives us that opportunity to continue our research into the kinds of issues that matter to coastal resiliency, to clean water, to the changing world that we are all living in and climate change to ensure that we can keep that part of New York a healthy and vibrant place, paying close attention to the local fisheries, paying close attention to the health of fisheries industries, bivalve industries, the coasts, the quality of water for people out there. And especially as population continues to grow on the East End, and that continues to put pressure on the environment.

Our scientists in our School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, by being part of that campus, are there and can engage in the kinds of research that mean we can work with the community in making sure that remains a very healthy place for everybody.

So I would say that we’re … we’ll keep thinking and listening to the community and figuring out what the future should be. But right now those are three areas that we think are a great integration of Stony Brook’s mission and using that unique location that really special part of being on the East End to further both education and research and creativity.

Q: I imagine with your background, the Writers Conference in particular must be very exciting to be a part of now. And you must clearly appreciate the value of that.

Absolutely. And what an amazing group of writers we’ve been fortunate to have associated with Stony Brook over the years. Really so exciting.

Q: So you’ve got health care, and obviously that’s going to be more important moving forward as we talk about a new hospital on the campus site. You’ve got the arts programs, in writing and in film and theater. And you’ve got Marine Science. Those are three very different strengths for a campus. With the geographical challenges — being as far away from the main campus as it is, it’s not particularly close — how do you see that working going forward? Can you do three things well? And the fact that they’re kind of not interrelated, particularly?

We don’t see that a problem at all. In fact, we think that’s part of what makes it an exciting and vibrant campus and those three communities interact well. We have really dedicated not only individuals who are there and living there year round, full time, but also the deans of the schools in which those programs are connected are enormously committed to these programs and see them as absolutely vital and integral to the work that they are doing as deans leading these academic programs.

Q: There currently are 540 students attending classes at Stony Brook Southampton. When Stony Brook purchased the campus back in 2005, 2006, the worry was that it might be a kind of white elephant — that the university was getting something without a real clear idea of what to do with it. Everybody here was very appreciative that it was saved from development and retained as an educational institution. But there was this feeling that it was sort of a square peg that maybe didn’t fit into any of the round holes at Stony Brook.

At the time, there were conversations about the full-time enrollment at the campus being 2,000 within five years. That never happened. It never came close to that. What’s a realistic picture of what Stony Brook Southampton will be going forward, as far as the number of full-time students?

That is not a question I can give you a numeric answer for today. You know, as I said, I’ve been here since July 2020, and we have been all in the midst of operating educational institutions, very focused on keeping our community safe.

Stony Brook University is beginning this semester to embark on its universitywide strategic planning process. Southampton will obviously be one of our real focused topic areas. And at the end of that process, we could probably give you a more definitive answer to that question.

Q: Going into that conversation, there had been talk at one point about the university potentially closing the campus. You don’t see that as an option at this point, moving forward?

No. We all see this as an incredible asset and a real opportunity. But, as I said, we want to continue to think about the ways in which it, as a campus community, is also serving the needs of that community and understanding the ways in which it is best integrated into life on the East End.

So there is much for us to continue to listen to and learn about as we think about the full range of what is right for that campus.

Q: When you talk about the university and what it can do for the local community, a new hospital facility on the campus, to replace Stony Brook Southampton Hospital in Southampton Village, has got to be top of the list, right?

Absolutely the top of the list. When we engage with people on the East End, the thing we have heard so much about is the need for really high-quality access to really high-quality medical care. So the acquisition of the hospital was the first step in that. The continued development of educational programs in the health professions, the placement of residents, graduate medical trainees in the East End — that’s all a big part of it, as well as the continued development of our clinical practice plans on the East End. And the number of physicians who are part of Stony Brook Medicine, who are serving people in a number of specialty areas.

And the reality is that Stony Brook Southampton Hospital is an aging building. It is a building not to the standards that we would all like to see for cutting-edge medical care on the East End.

And so the plans are really the addition of two new facilities. The first of which is an emergency department facility in East Hampton. And we’re really excited that has recently received certain approvals that it needed in East Hampton, as well as the fundraising efforts for that have gone extremely well. So that project is moving forward at pace.

The other part, as you mentioned, and that will be the location of a new building on the Stony Brook Southampton campus. We were getting ready to really sort that out, and then the pandemic hit. And so that project has really slowed down.

There has been considerable thought that has gone into the siting and the location of that building. Even some preliminary thoughts about what its design might look like. But everything really related to fundraising was pretty much put on pause.

And so, hopefully, we’ll be able to get back to that work. That is a building that many in the community have talked about what a critical need that is. And it’s something we’re really committed to helping the community bring into being, so that we can continue to improve the health care that is available to those who live on the East End.

Q: So, as we look at Stony Brook Southampton from the outside, is there ever going to be a moment when it becomes more of a residential campus than it is now? When we talk about economic development and the benefits of having a school in our midst, having the students in our midst helps with that, too. Do you see a future where this campus has more of a residential aspect than it’s had in recent years?

As I said, I think this is going to be one of the questions that will come up as we have conversations in strategic planning that are very focused on Southampton campus.

Q: When you talk about the medical needs of the community, the climate’s changing quite a bit, isn’t it? There are a lot more players who suddenly are invested in providing health care on the South Fork in the last two or three years. There’s almost been sort of a gold rush out here, hasn’t there?

Yes. (Laughs.) We have noticed that there are definitely other players. You know, the population on the East End is growing, and the year-round population on the East End is growing. And that’s always been, I think, one of the challenges for the East End is the seasonal variation in population levels and figuring out how you properly staff for what is a variability in the population.

And we definitely think that the addition of the emergency department in East Hampton is really going to help answer one of the challenges that we’ve heard about so loud and clear, and that was that, with the influx of residents in the summer, how hard it was — it may not be that far in miles, but it was that far in time if you lived farther east than Southampton to actually access the emergency department there.

So, we’ll continue to do everything we can to provide not only great health care there but, by being integrated into the Stony Brook Medicine system, it means that if there’s a really complex case that emerges on the East End, it can immediately connect with the more specialist doctors at Stony Brook University Hospital for consultation. And, if necessary, immediately transfer somebody from an East End location to the university.

If what they need is tertiary and ordinary care, having this sort of system, it means we’re going to be able to provide the very best academic medical care to residents throughout the East End. And we’re really excited about being able to continue to develop on that.

Q: I think some of that is already in place.

Yep, yep. The improved trauma care that we’re able to provide, the increasing enhancements that are coming to both the [cardiac catheterization] center, the cancer center — I mean, all of those sorts of things are about elevating the health care that people can access close at home, as well as keeping you for those really, really complicated cases, which, hopefully, nobody ever has. But when you do, you can immediately get plugged in as you need to.

Q: So the new hospital …?

Remains a top priority. And while I know there was a lot of listening previously that went on in order to understand what mattered to the local community, I think we have an opportunity coming out of the pandemic and out of this pause to once again, reengage with the community, to hear what’s important to them, to make sure as this project moves forward that we are doing that in ways that are going to serve the most acute needs of the community and that we are listening.