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A Global Institution
I want to make three more points before concluding. During my inauguration I spoke about Stony Brook University as a global institution. This past summer I saw that reality firsthand. I traveled to Madagascar, where I joined Stony Brook University Professor and MacArthur Genius Award winner Pat Wright as we opened Centre ValBio. Built with gifts to the Stony Brook Foundation, this amazing building will be the center for education and research at the Ranomafana Preserve, where Pat continues her groundbreaking studies on lemurs and biodiversity.

I traveled to Mahajanga in Madagascar, where Professor David Krause discovered the fossil remains of Majungasaurus crenatissimus (what we affectionately refer to as Stony Bones), and then traveled to Kenya, where I joined Stony Brook Professors Richard, Maeve and Louise Leakey and Lawrence Martin, director of the Turkana Basin Institute, and toured both Lake Turkana sites, arguably the best fossil sites for human and non-human primate evolution in the world. The research at each site is world class, and the opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and professional students amazing.

As impressed as I was with the research, I was equally proud of the difference that each of the research sites is making to its local community and to its country. David Krause’s Ankizy Fund has already built five schools in Madagascar, and in collaboration with our School of Dental Medicine is providing children and adults in many villages with outstanding dental care. Pat Wright led the effort to create the preserve at Ranomafana, saving thousands of acres of rain forest and a unique ecosystem. She and her colleagues also are beginning efforts to look at health issues in the surrounding communities, focusing particularly on clean water and the prevention of diarrheal illnesses. And the Turkana sites are working to help surrounding communities get fresh water; improve maternal health; develop new sources of energy, such as biogas; and create new industries, such as fish farming.

I have just scratched the surface of what our faculty and students do in these areas and in many other countries around the world. And speaking of a global university, this past spring we had the official opening of SUNY Korea, our new campus in Songdo, near Seoul, South Korea. This is an amazing venture — we are the first and only U.S. university that has been approved by the South Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to offer degrees in South Korea. The facilities are incredible, the student quality is high, and we are committed to doing this right. We want those students to get a Stony Brook-quality education and truly earn a Stony Brook University degree.

The Team That Shocked the World
When I delivered my inaugural address I talked briefly about athletics and gave a shout-out to Wolfie, stating there would always be a line item in my budget for Wolfie. Well, that was smart — Wolfie is more popular than ever — but I really could not have predicted the impact our athletics program has had over the past three years. Name recognition is so important to us, for student and faculty recruitment, for our ability to appeal to donors and for our alumni. I don’t have time to chronicle all of the accomplishments — there are just too many and they encompass many of our sports teams.

But I think it is fair to say that Stony Brook University, as epitomized by the Team That Shocked the World, our baseball team, has made a name for itself as a great university that also has some pretty amazing athletes, some very impressive coaches and a great Athletic Director in Jim Fiore. I can’t put a dollar value on the publicity that we have received, but I know firsthand from talking with students, faculty, alumni, donors, members of our community and people who just hear that I have something to do with Stony Brook University that athletics has really helped engage people with this great institution.

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