A Renewable College: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Stony Brook Southampton is a new kind of school – a small, intimate college associated with a major research university. Campus life and learning are interconnected and characterized by common purpose.
The curriculum is organized not into departments but around issues related to environmental sustainability, public policy, and natural resource management. Classes are shaped around an interdisciplinary core, and you will have many opportunities to explore how political, economic, and social issues relate to the environment. You will also learn valuable skills—team building, communications, negotiation, project management, and ethics—that you can use as you continue your work after graduation.
Energy, agriculture, and the elements will be fully integrated into college life. Our Long Island campus on the Atlantic Ocean already has a wind turbine. Students will help plan new “green” buildings, and will take part in landscaping the campus and growing organic fruits and vegetables.
Your classes will be small, and you will get to know your teachers and other students well. Our admissions process is highly selective: Think of us as an honors program with access to the resources of a major university. We welcome a diversity of interests, so it doesn’t matter what your major is. What matters is that you want to be on the front line.
Shaping our response to global challenges
“The environment and sustainability are the most critical issues for the 21st century,” Stony Brook University President Shirley Strum Kenny has said. “It will be an extraordinary opportunity for students to help shape our response to the global challenges we face.”
Our location—on top of the world’s richest aquifer and in proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound—is the perfect place for you to put theory to practice. Our integrated learning approach makes this possible.
Students in our Marine Sciences Research Center are exploring the ways land use practices affect the surrounding bays. Learning opportunities off campus include marine science short courses in Jamaica over winter break and travel to Madagascar to study tropical rainforest ecology.
On campus we are finding ways to limit our ecological footprint by reducing energy and water consumption, planting gardens, and buying supplies locally. Internships and community service opportunities with local and national environmental groups and government agencies are not only encouraged, but expected.
Approximately 200 students are taking courses at Stony Brook Southampton this Fall, including those already enrolled in the existing undergraduate Marine Sciences program which Stony Brook absorbed from Long Island University last year. About 2000 students are expected to enroll within five years.
In addition to the Marine Sciences program and the programs related to the environment, Stony Brook will offer an MFA creative writing program, headed by Robert Reeves, who directed the writing program at Southampton for LIU. The Writers Conference, a 30-year institution on the East End, annually attracting leading authors and artists from across the country, was held at Stony Brook University last summer, and will return to Southampton next year. Stony Brook also plans to offer courses and events at Southampton related to its Center for Wine, Food, and Culture.
A Message from Dean Martin Schoonen
Are you compelled to find ways to secure a sustainable future, preserve ecological hotspots, or develop solutions to global environmental problems? Are you a risk-taker, an independent student, eager to be part of a new movement in education? Then you have come to the right place: Stony Brook Southampton.
Stony Brook Southampton, a small college located in the Hamptons, New York, is part of Stony Brook University, a leading public research university. The Hamptons have inspired writers, filmmakers, journalists, actors, and artists for many years. Now you can join this community and prepare for a career that will change how we live our lives.
Imagine working with some of the foremost anthropologists in the world to preserve endangered species, develop new paradigms in land-use planning that lead to sustainable development, or study the changes in the marine ecosystems directly surrounding the campus. These are among the many opportunities Stony Brook Southampton provides.
Moreover, you will be able to start a legacy. Although Stony Brook University has just turned 50, the programs here are new — and you will help shape the future of a college dedicated to the study of sustainability and closely related fields.
I have been at Stony Brook University for nearly 20 years and I have helped build its reputation as a premier public research university. But with students like you—working alongside some of the most dedicated faculty you will find—helping build Stony Brook Southampton’s evolving program will be a life-altering experience for all of us.
I hope you will join me at Southampton so we learn together how to make the future better. Apply now to be part of the inaugural class beginning in September 2007.
Martin Schoonen
Dean, Stony Brook Southampton