Established | 1963 |
---|---|
Chancellor | Carla Caglioti |
Provost | Robert Reeves |
Students | 310 |
Location |
Southampton, New York 82 acres (330,000 m2) |
Colors | red,white |
Mascot | Wolfie |
Stony Brook Southampton is a campus location of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, located in Southampton, New York between the Shinnecock Indian Reservation and Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on the eastern end of Long Island.
Southampton College was founded in 1963 by Long Island University. It had its own station on the Long Island Rail Road until 1998 when the station was dismantled because it was lightly used.
From 1993, Robert F.X. Sillerman served as the Chancellor, replacing Angier Biddle Duke, ambassador to Spain under Lyndon Johnson. Sillerman took the job on two conditions: that the college scrap ill-defined liberal-arts programs and focus on marine science and creative writing, and that he lead publicity. He named Kermit the Frog as the 1996 commencement speaker: 31 newspapers picked up the story, a free marketing bonanza that raised the college's profile and drew hundreds of new admissions.
The refocusing on the marine science curriculum garnered the campus several accolades, including being named in 1998 as the Cousteau Society's sole North American Affiliate. In the course of the campus's tenure under Long Island University, it produced 34 Fulbright scholars, most of which hailed from the Marine Science program.
After many years of fiscal mismanagement, the University announced a multimillion-dollar capital campaign, launched a new interdisciplinary CORE curriculum and the construction of a new library (almost completed) to re-vamp the campus. After one year of a 10-year plan however, Long Island University officials ceased all plans and Long Island University decided to effectively close the campus. This forced most students to either move to University's Nassau County location, C.W. Post Campus or transfer elsewhere.