Looking Forward to Seeing You in Person
August 11, 2021
Dear Members of the Stony Brook Community,
It is wonderful to be fully returning to in-person work, teaching, and learning. Already
you can feel the excitement as people reunite with their friends, thank their colleagues,
and plan together for the future. I’ve had the chance to meet some of you in person
who previously were faces on a Zoom screen. From eating ice cream at one of our recent
social events to enjoying music at the reopening of the Staller Center, I continue
to be grateful for the opportunity to be together as a unified and active campus.
Whether you are an employee just returning to the office this month, an essential
worker who has been steering the Stony Brook ship the whole way through, or a new
member of our campus community, you are critical in helping Stony Brook advance its
mission.
Certainly, the latest developments associated with COVID require us to regularly assess
the situation and shift our response where necessary, as we have done consistently
throughout the pandemic. We have learned a lot about how to keep our campus safe and
now have the addition of effective vaccines to help in this effort. I’m confident
that we will thoughtfully navigate our return to the campus safely. And there is plenty
of important work for us to do, together.
Never before has the importance of the research done at public universities like ours
been more apparent. I take seriously Stony Brook’s role in leading us into a brighter,
more equitable, and sustainable future. While our healthcare workers were pushed to
their highest potential this past year — caring for patients across our community
and administering more than 460,000 vaccines — our interdisciplinary approach to scholarship
has us positioned as one of the best public research universities in the country.
We are the clear leader in the SUNY system in innovation and ranked as one of the
most effective institutions in the world in promoting social mobility and opportunity.
Our collective efforts are creating a community that reaches across departments, campus
locations, social divides, and across the globe for knowledge and discovery.
Through the collaborative work of our staff and faculty, we were able to thrive during
one of the most difficult years in memory. We were able to celebrate breakthrough
discoveries, provide for the community, work to close the gender gap in STEM, create
growth and opportunity for our underrepresented students, and foster mentorship between
our university and our neighbors on Long Island. Thanks to your shared accountability
and teamwork, Stony Brook has emerged with the momentum to reach higher and make an
even greater positive impact on our world.
Now, as we turn to the fall with a renewed vigor and purpose, there’s an opportunity
to use this power of collaboration to further the impact and international reputation
of Stony Brook. We have demonstrated that we are stronger together; we are at our
best when we bring a dynamic, integrated approach to our work, service, and scholarship.
I’m proud of the way Stony Brook maintained this environment through a year of remote
work, but I also know how essential it is that we now return to campus and continue
to build this institution into one of the most exciting public universities in the
world, ready to foster student success, support one another, forge new pathways for
social and economic equity, and innovate solutions for our 21st century challenges.
Stony Brook is planning for a future of great change and great potential, and I know
that we can lead the world into this new era, determining how we treat one another,
how we treat our planet, and how we ensure the health of the next generation. You
are an essential part of this effort. I couldn’t be prouder to work alongside you,
in person, in this important academic year. So, I’d like to end by offering a warm
welcome back to campus. I can’t wait to meet you all.
Sincerely,
Maurie McInnis
President