The State University of New York at Stony Brook, commonly referred to as Stony Brook University (SBU), is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's two flagship institutions. Its campus consists of 213 buildings on over of land in Suffolk County and it is the largest public university (by area) in the state of New York.
Opened in 1957 in Oyster Bay as the State University College on Long Island, the institution moved to Stony Brook in 1962. Stony Brook is part of the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".
Stony Brook University, in partnership with Battelle, manages Brookhaven National Laboratory, a national laboratory of the United States Department of Energy. The university acquired land for a Research & Development Park adjacent to its main campus in 2004, and has four business incubators across the region. Stony Brook is the largest single-site employer on Long Island; over 25,500 students are enrolled at the university, which has over 15,000 employees and over 2,850 faculty.
Stony Brook is a member of the Coastal Athletic Association, and its intercollegiate athletic teams have competed at the Division I level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) since 1999.
History
Origins in Oyster Bay
The State University of New York at Stony Brook was established in Oyster Bay in 1957, as the State University College on Long Island (SUCOLI). Established almost a decade after the creation of New York's public higher education system, the institution was envisioned as a college for the preparation of secondary school teachers.
Leonard K. Olson was appointed as the first dean of the institution and was instrumental in the recruitment of faculty staff and planning of the later Stony Brook campus. SUCOLI opened with an inaugural class of 148 students, on the grounds of the William Robertson Coe Planting Fields estate. These first students were admitted on a tuition-free basis.
1961 was a year of firsts as 30 students were conferred degrees in the first commencement and the university was appointed its first president, John Francis Lee. Lee left later that year due to political and bureaucratic matters regarding the future of the university and the central administration at Albany. Nevertheless, he had fulfilled his primary task of reshaping the university from a technical science and engineering college of limited degree options to a full-scale university featuring liberal arts programs.
Move to Stony Brook In 1960 the Heald Report, commissioned by Governor Nelson Rockefeller, recommended a major new public university be built on Long Island to "stand with the finest in the country," a report that would ultimately shape most of the university's growth for years to come.
Ward Melville, a philanthropist and businessman from the Three Village area in western Suffolk County donated over of land to the state for the development of a state university and in 1962 the institution relocated to Stony Brook and officially renamed as the State University of New York at Stony Brook. However, the longer name has fallen out of favor; since 2005, it has usually been called simply Stony Brook University (SBU).
The campus had 782 students enrolled in 1962, but enrollment had increased more than tenfold by 1969, surpassing the 8,000 mark, fueled by the large funding of public higher education in the Sputnik era. In 1963, only three years after the release of the Heald Report, the Governor commissioned the "Education of Health Professions" (Muir Report) report. The report outlined the need for expansion of the university system to prepare medical professionals for the future needs of the state. The report was particularly important for Stony Brook as it recommended creation of a Health Sciences Center and academic hospital at the campus to serve the need of the fastest-growing counties (Nassau and Suffolk) in New York at the time.
Growth
In 1965, the State University appointed John S. Toll, a physicist from the University of Maryland as the second president of Stony Brook. In 1966, the university set forth initial timetables for the development of the Health Sciences Center, which would house the university's health programs and hospital. Despite the budgetary concerns and challenges from Albany, the university released a formalized plan early in 1968 and funding for recruitment of faculty was provided. At the same time, residential housing was expanded to 3,000, the Stony Brook Union opened in 1970, and in 1971, the massive expansion project for the campus library (named in memory of Frank Melville Jr., father of philanthropist Ward Melville) was completed.
Despite the fast-paced growth, campus infrastructure often struggled to keep pace: overcrowding, expansion, landscaping, lighting, and safety were persistent problems at the university, which led to multiple protests and growing tension between the student body and the administration. In January 1968, the "Operation Stony Brook" drug raid resulted in the arrest of 29 students, and late that year, tension climaxed as the administration and students decided on a three-day moratorium to bring together the entire university with the goal of improving communication between the students, faculty, and administration.
The 1970s witnessed the growth of the university and its transformation as a major research institution within New York's public school system, with strong graduate programs and scientific breakthroughs like the development of magnetic resonance imaging. However, the university lagged significantly in undergraduate education, prioritizing graduate education and research over undergraduate studies and student life. By 1975, enrollment had reached 16,000 and expansion crossed over Nicolls Road with the construction of the Health Sciences Center, which would be completed in 1980.
In 1981, John Marburger was inaugurated as the third president, and continued the expansion. By the late 1980s, the administration affirmed the need to improve other areas of the institution, which included undergraduate education, student and residential life, and intercollegiate athletics. In 1994, the university approved a decision to transition athletics to the Division I of the NCAA by 1999 and followed with the construction of the Stony Brook Arena and the expansion of the Indoor Sports Complex.
Further expansion into the 21st century The 1990s affirmed Stony Brook's success at building a research university with a strong undergraduate education. Under the leadership of its fourth president, Shirley Strum Kenny, the administration sought out to showcase the value of the institution. Kenny was responsible for campus wide improvement projects, which included large-scale landscaping, renovations of every residence hall, the continued growth of the athletics programs, the improvement of student life, ever-increasing research expenditures, a branding/marketing campaign, and the university's increasing ties with private philanthropy.
In the mid-1990s, the school began to distance itself from the SUNY system, as Kenny believed that the SUNY name was hurting the school's reputation.
In 1998, the university became one of the top 100 American research universities in the U.S. News & World Report. That same year, the university and Battelle Memorial Institute were chosen by the Department of Energy as joint operators of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, joining a selective group of universities that operate national laboratories across the nation. Enrollment reached the 20,000 mark in 2001, and the administration's improvement efforts climaxed with the invitation to the highly selective Association of American Universities, an organization of North American universities committed to a strong system of research and education.
2002 saw the opening of the $22 million Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium and the inauguration of the massive Charles B. Wang Center dedicated to Asian and American culture, funded by a $50 million donation from Charles B. Wang. At the time, it was the largest private donation to a SUNY institution. In 2003, chemistry professor Paul Lauterbur received a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research and discovery of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, which was instrumental in the development of NMR Imaging (MRI) while at Stony Brook. In 2005, the university bought the Flowerfield property adjacent to campus through eminent domain as land for the development of a Research and Development Park. Plans for a law school were in the talks but scrapped shortly after.
In 2009, president Shirley Strum Kenny stepped down, and in May, Samuel L. Stanley was announced as Stony Brook's fifth president. The late 2000s saw the university receive historic philanthropic donations. Hedge funder Jim Simons made multiple multi-million donations, including a $25 million donation to the Stony Brook Foundation in 2006, a $60 million donation for the development of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics in 2008, and a landmark $150 million donation to the university in 2011. Other major donations were provided by alumni Joe Nathan, Stuart Goldstein, and Glenn Dubin for major renovation of athletic facilities. In 2010, Stanley announced Project 50 Forward, a comprehensive plan for the development of the university in the next 50 years with a focus on "operational excellence, academic greatness, and building for the future."
In 2012, the $40 million Walter J. Hawrys Campus Recreation Center opened, soon followed by the on-campus Hilton Garden Inn in May 2013. Frey Hall, named after alumnus Robert Frey, opened in 2013 after undergoing renovations as the former Old Chemistry building. The Stony Brook University Arena underwent a $21 million overhaul, re-opening as the Island Federal Arena in 2014. In July 2015, a new $40.8 million Computer Science building opened, spanning . New dormitories, known as Chavez Hall and Tubman Hall, along with a new East Side dining hall, opened in the fall of 2016. In January 2019, Stony Brook Medicine opened their $194 million cancer center to the public.
President Stanley left Stony Brook effective August 1, 2019, to become the president of Michigan State University following the Larry Nassar scandal. Provost Michael A. Bernstein was named interim president in his place. On March 26, 2020, Maurie McInnis, the executive vice president and provost of the University of Texas, was named the sixth president of Stony Brook, effective July 1, 2020.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States Army constructed $50 million temporary field hospitals on the campus of Stony Brook University. However, the beds were dismantled in 2021 without ever being used. A $63.4 million renovation of the Stony Brook Union was completed during the pandemic and opened in 2020.
Flagship status era On January 5, 2022, New York Governor Kathy Hochul officially designated Stony Brook University and the University at Buffalo as the two flagship universities of the State University of New York system. The announcement came with the dedication of a new $100 million multidisciplinary engineering building. About three weeks later, Stony Brook announced its departure from the America East Conference after 21 years to the Colonial Athletic Association, effective July 1, 2022. Later that year, distinguished professor Dennis Sullivan earned the 2022 Abel Prize, the top honor in mathematics.
In the 2022–23 edition of the U.S. News & World Report national college rankings, Stony Brook was ranked 77th, its highest-ever placement, as well as the first time that Stony Brook held sole possession of the highest-ranked public university in New York. It advanced to 58th the following year.