SUFFOLK CLOSEUP : Academic Dysfunction

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman 

It’s a matter of academic dysfunction in Suffolk County. For decades, two four-year liberal arts colleges in Suffolk County—Southampton College and Dowling College—provided exceptional education. Southampton College, part of Long Island University, opened in 1963. Students came from across the nation and many settled in Suffolk County contributing to life here.

But in 2005, LIU abruptly shut down Southampton College for, it said, financial reasons. An excellent book on this is Running on Empty: The Rise and Fall of Southampton College, 1963-2005 by long-time Southampton College professor of history Dr. John Strong. The 2013 work includes much information on the bumpy times of LIU—largely due to money problems—since it was established in 1926. 

State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr., a graduate of Southampton College, and former State Senator Kenneth LaValle joined in a rescue mission. With the help of Shirley Strum Kenny, then president of Stony Brook University, they managed to have it become Stony Brook Southampton, part of Stony Brook University, and a school that would focus on the environment. 

The state spent $78 million buying the campus in 2006 and upgrading facilities. 

Things were working out fine. The school was growing nicely and by 2010 had 800 students. But Dr. Kenny, who earlier had been president of Queens College and was an English scholar, was succeeded as president of Stony Brook University by Dr. Samuel Stanley.  A first act by Dr. Stanley was shuttering Stony Brook Southampton. A biomedical researcher, former vice-chancellor for research at Washington University in St. Louis, he didn’t appreciate a small teaching institution.  

Thiele, of Sag Harbor, charged at the time that Dr. Stanley acted “behind closed doors in secretive ways” in a manner which was “appalling.” He called for Dr. Stanley’s resignation.

Things got a little better in succeeding years especially with use of a portion of the campus by Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences.

But, mainly, the school, on 84 acres, became a ghost campus.

This year, Thiele blasted Stony Brook University for what he described as its failures with the campus. “The Southampton campus can be one of Stony Brook University’s great assets. Yet it is wasting away,” said Thiele.

“The university has had stewardship of the property for 17 years,” he noted. Its “lack of action…is inexcusable and can no longer be tolerated.”

By causing its Southampton campus to become to a large extent a collection of derelict buildings, Stony Brook University, he charged, had become “the biggest slumlord on the East End.”

Indeed, in recent times there have been condemnation notices and large X’s posted by fire marshals on buildings including the historic windmill on the campus and on Southampton Hall, the structure that served as the main administrative building when it was Southampton College.

“A Big Red ‘X’” was the heading of an editorial in July in The Southampton Press and other Express News Group newspapers. “For years, the historic windmill on what is now the Southampton campus of Stony Brook University has been its iconic image,” it began. “It has graced promotional materials, the piece of history on its hilltop perch is an indelible image of the entire campus itself.”

“Today,” it went on, “with a giant red ‘X’ designating it as neglected and now condemned for safety reasons after a routine inspection, it remains the perfect representation of Stony Brook University on the campus. What is happening…? Does Stony Brook plan to invest in the campus, or is the condition of its structures a sign of not just neglect but indifference? Even contempt? The red letter asks all those questions.”

I taught at Southampton College as a part-time adjunct professor of journalism from 1980 until it was shut down by LIU in 2005. What happened to this wonderful educational resource in Suffolk County is heartbreaking.

This July a plan was presented for the campus to be the home of a vocational school. The proposed Southampton College of the Trades would be funded through a nonprofit organization. At a press conference announcing the plan, the three men spearheading it said the school would aim to usher young people into trade careers through skill development and internship placements. Thiele was on hand and voiced support. However, he noted that for a private entity to gain use of a state facility, “a lease…would have to pass the New York State Legislature.”

Next week: the abandoned campus of Dowling College in Oakdale and a Suffolk County legislator’s effort to have the county purchase the 25-acre campus on the Connetquot River and preserve its main structure, Idle Hour, once the mansion of railroad heir William K. Vanderbilt. Vacant Dowling, which like Southampton College, was once an educational treasure in Suffolk, is now owned by a subsidiary of a Beijing, China investment firm.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.