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A Third President Named John
After 14 years, Johnny returned to Maryland as president of the University of Maryland system (where he was my boss), and after yet another interlude of administrative turbulence, two years’ worth, in 1980 John H. Marburger came from USC to become the third president—the third who was a scientist named John. Jack steered the campus through a period of growth, maturation, and regularization of many campus processes. The Hospital grew to maturity, and the Health Sciences campus became fully established. Its faculty doubled during Jack’s tenure and the Veterans Home opened. As the quality and quantity of research continued to grow rapidly, the Long Island High Tech Incubator was created, the Fine Arts Center became the Staller Center, the Pollock-Krasner House was deeded to the University, and the Dalai Lama received an honorary degree. And then there was Tent City, created on the Mall by the graduate students to protest the paucity of their stipends. Jack served as president for 14 years, after which he briefly returned to the Physics Department before being called to become director of Brookhaven National Lab (I was doing the calling), and for the past seven years he has been serving as the United States President’s science advisor and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. He was followed at Stony Brook by the first president who was not a scientist and was not named John, a development that came as something of a shock to the system.

So Far, So Fast
There are many important people in our history whom I have left out of this brief narrative, but who will always be key figures—Sidney Gelber, Alec Pond, Karl Hartzell, and many others. Their imprint is permanent.

And where have we come in those 50 years? From a teachers college to a member of the AAU, the top 62 research universities in North America. From a total enrollment of 148 to 23,400. From a freshman class of 148 to 2,700. From a freshman applications pool of 365 to 24,000. From 14 faculty to 2,100. From an operating budget of $2.7 million to $1.8 billion. From geodesic domes to the Centers for Molecular Medicine.

From the horse stables to up-to-date campus housing for almost 9,000 students, including many new apartments, to be increased by 770 more beds in the next two years. From locating near Brookhaven National Lab to managing the Lab.

From a few borrowed buildings in Oyster Bay to a university comprising 222 buildings on 1,600 acres, including the Main Campus on both sides of Nicolls Road, the Veterans Home, the Manhattan site, the Research and Development Park, three incubators on campus and at Calverton, and the new Stony Brook Southampton campus. Not bad for our first 50 years.

It All Adds Up
If you look at our trajectory on a shorter timeline—because we don’t have numbers for our total history—an upsurge is still apparent:

First, the number of freshman and transfer applications has rocketed from 19,000 ten years ago to 30,000 this year. For the second year we have the highest number of applicants of any SUNY college.

Consequently, we have become far more selective in admissions, decreasing our acceptance rate from 56 percent to 43 percent.

And that, of course, has led to our rising SAT scores, which have climbed 110 points in that same ten years.

All that has helped with our recognition as one of the 100 best national universities and the 50 best public universities in U.S. News & World Report.

Our research success has landed us in the top 2 percent of universities worldwide, according to the London Times Higher Education Supplement and the Shanghai Higher Education Institute.

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