The Stony Brook men’s basketball team erased a 12-point deficit and came from behind to defeat Sacred Heart, 71-64, in a thrilling contest that saw 12 lead changes on Dec. 12 at Island Federal Arena. After being down 31-19 with 3:37 left to play in the first half, the Seawolves outscored the Pioneers 47-31 in the second half to ultimately secure the win.
On the Seawolves’ first possession of the second half, graduate center Keenan Fitzmorris dunked the ball with authority after a pick-and-roll play, sparking a 12-3 extended run for Stony Brook that cut its deficit to 38-36.
Stony Brook dominated throughout the rest of the second frame, outscoring the Pioneers by 16 in the half, en route to a 71-64 win at Island Federal Arena.
Fitzmorris followed the dunk with a jumper outside the paint that was assisted by junior guard Tanahj Pettway, scoring four consecutive points. He finished the game with 13 points on 6-of-6 shooting from the floor. On the Seawolves’ ensuing possession, Pettway pulled down a defensive rebound off a jump shot that was missed by Sacred Heart’s junior forward Nico Galette and drove down the lane for a layup that put Stony Brook on a 6-0 run.
After Sacred Heart guard Raheem Solomon drilled a three pointer off an assist from Galette with 17:37 left to play in the contest, the Seawolves went on another 6-0 run. Graduate forward Frankie Policelli and sophomore guard Kaine Roberts drained back-to-back threes to cut the deficit to just two, 38-36.
Stony Brook was able to cut the Pioneer’s lead down to a one-point deficit when Pettway grabbed another defensive rebound off a missed three from senior guard Joey Reilly and drove down the lane again and finished a layup and drew a foul. He made the free throw to complete the three-point play and Stony Brook was trailing, 44-43, with 13:20 left to play.
With 12:46 remaining in the game, Pettway had a huge steal defensively and ran the fast break for the Seawolves. With good ball movement, senior guard Tyler Stephenson-Moore found junior forward Kenan Sarvan open in the corner. Sarvan sniped a three pointer, right in front of the Seawolves’ bench, and gave Stony Brook a 46-43 lead. This lead marked Stony Brook’s first lead in the game since it was 4-3, just over two minutes into the first half.
The Seawolves and Pioneers battled throughout the rest of the game and with under two minutes remaining, up 65-64, Fitzmorris got the ball in the post on the low block. With the 6-foot-3 Solomon defending him, the 7-foot center spun towards the baseline and slammed home the finishing touches of the game.
Stony Brook ended the game on an 8-0 scoring run over the final 2:43 and held Sacred Heart scoreless for the final 3:20. The Seawolves improved to 3-7 overall on the season.
From left, Patricia Wright with Pamela Reed Sanchez, President and CEO of the Seneca Park Zoo Society with the Warrior Award, a depiction of a tree growing out of rock, designed and created by artists at the Corning Museum of Glass. Photo courtesy of Amanda Lindley
By Daniel Dunaief
For only a short period of time, Patricia Wright was just a primatologist who studies the charming lemurs of Madagascar.
Now the Herrnstein Professor of Conservation Biology and Distinguished Service Professor at Stony Brook University, Wright first trekked to the island nation off the southwest coast of the African continent in 1986 to understand and study these unique primates.
Within a year, she realized she wouldn’t have much to observe and understand in a perilously short time if she didn’t also work to protect them, their habitat, and many other threatened and endangered animals and plants.
With the help of the government of Madagascar, Wright created a protected area known as Ranomafana National Park, which includes 41,500 hectares of space, keeping loggers, poachers and others from threatening to eradicate animals and plants that are unique to the country.
Between the original effort to create the national park and today, Wright has collected numerous honors and distinctions. She has won three Medals of Honor from the Malagasy government and become the first female recipient of the coveted Indianapolis Zoo Prize in 2014.
Recently, the Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester, New York named Wright its inaugural “Conservation Warrior,” providing her with a $20,000 prize in recognition for conservation work that has had a lasting, meaningful impact on species survival.
Patricia Wright with her Warrior Award from the Seneca Park Zoo.
“Dr. Wright’s early years were spent in Rochester, New York and it is fitting that the inaugural Conservation Warrior award be bestowed upon arguably the most influential conservationist to come out of the Finger Lakes region,” Pamela Reed Sanchez, President and CEO of the Seneca Park Zoo Society, explained in an email.
The newly anointed conservation warrior recently traveled to Montreal as a member of the Madagascar delegation at the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP-15.
While she’s in Montreal, she plans to meet with conservation donors in an all-out effort to save wildlife on Madagascar, where almost all the reptiles and amphibians, half of its birds and all of its lemurs are only found on the island nation.
Wright hopes to raise $250 million for the country and $50 million for Centre ValBio (CVB), the research station she created in Ranomafana in 2003 and that employs 80 Malagasy staff. CVB has developed a conservation network around CVB that includes work with 75 villages.
Drew Fellman, who directed and wrote the Island of Lemurs documentary, encouraged donors to support Wright’s efforts. Wright and CVB are at the “front line of defense and anyone who cares [about] wildlife and endangered species should lend them a hand,” Fellman wrote in an email. He described how some species of lemurs are down to fewer than 10 individuals and “without conservation, there will be nothing left to research.”
In areas where conservation isn’t a priority, the region has lost habitat and biodiversity. In the northern areas of Madagascar, loggers and timber exporters reduced rainforest areas to grasslands, she said.
In the bigger picture, Wright said Madagascar needs funding immediately as the country is “closer to the brink of extinction with so many more species.” Saving plants and animals in Madagascar extends beyond committing to the protection and stewardship of vulnerable creatures. It also could provide benefits for people.
“So many lemur species are close relatives [to humans] and contain genetic information” about Alzheimer’s, diabetes and other conditions, she said. Additionally, creatures like bamboo lemurs regularly eat large quantities of cyanide, which would kill humans. Understanding how they can tolerate such high quantities of cyanide could provide an antidote.
The forests in the national park, which might otherwise attract loggers, prevent erosion, silting and landslides, she explained.
The benefit of a research stations like CVB extend beyond gathering information and conducting experiments.
In a recent correspondence in Nature Communications, lead author Timothy Eppley, a postdoctoral fellow at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance along with three other scientists including Wright, argues that field research stations “are on the front line of biodiversity conservation, acting as no-take zones that rewild surrounding ecosystems.”
In the correspondence, Eppley and his colleagues said that these stations are “invisible” in global environmental policy, despite their importance in conservation.
“Our point in the paper is that this has not been given any conservation attention,” said Wright. “Nobody is funding us for doing conservation” even though these sites are “conservation engines. We should be given recognition and more conservation money.”
Eppley, who leads SDZWA’s lemur conservation program, added that the Nature correspondence didn’t include any of the data the group collected.
While Eppley cautioned in an email sent from Madagascar that it’s difficult to generalize about conservation efforts at field stations, he said many have some conservation initiatives or projects, or that some element of their research includes a strong conservation component.
“Without the conservation piece, all other research will eventually disappear: we need the ecosystem and animals to exist in the first place,” he explained.
Eppley suggested that scientists often approach conservation initiatives that they can test on a small scale and then, if they are effective, find the best way of scaling up those initiatives for entire protected areas, landscapes, countries or broader geographic regions.
As for the honor Wright received from the Seneca Park Zoo, Eppley believes such recognition dovetails with their recent correspondence piece in Nature Communications.
Wright “founded CVB and has been tirelessly building it into a globally recognized field research station,” he wrote.
Bringing international recognition to the work being done at CVB “highlights the overall importance of field research stations and why they need to be included in global environmental policy frameworks,” Eppley added.
#14 Tyler Stephenson-Moore takes a shot during last Saturday evening's game. Photo from Stony Brook Athletics
The Stony Brook men’s basketball team went toe-to-toe with Yale in front of an energized crowd inside Island Federal Arena on Dec. 3. The Seawolves put forth a valiant effort as they were led by senior guard Tyler Stephenson-Moore and graduate guard Aaron Clarke, who each posted 20-point outings. Despite the Seawolves’ efforts, the Bulldogs were able to narrowly pull away, 77-72, to improve to 8-1 on the season.
Clarke made his Stony Brook debut and gave the Seawolves a lift off the bench as he scored 20 points in 22 minutes. The graduate checked into the game with 15:44 to play in the first half and scored his first points as a Seawolf at the 13:29 mark when he knocked down a three-pointer.
Stephenson-Moore led the way offensively for Stony Brook as he scored 21 points and grabbed seven rebounds. Stephenson-Moore helped fuel an 8-0 run in the second half as he drilled a three to cut Yale’s lead to 67-62 with 8:04 to play.
The Seawolves and Bulldogs traded blows down the stretch. Stony Brook was able to get within two points of the lead three times over the final eight minutes of the game, but Yale came up with an answer on each occasion. With 1:06 to play in the contest, Clarke converted a pair of free-throws to make it 72-70. Yale returned the favor by cashing in on two free-throws on the ensuing possession with 43 seconds to play to go up, 74-70. A second-chance layup by graduate forward Frankie Policelli cut the Bulldog’s lead to two points, 74-72, as he cleaned up a missed three by Stephenson-Moore with 15 seconds to go.
Yale was able to convert its free-throws down the stretch and go on to win by the final score of 77-72. The five-point margin of victory was the second-smallest of the season for Yale, its smallest margin of victory was three points when it defeated Hawaii, 62-59, in overtime earlier this season.
“This [experience] is something we can build on,” said head coach Geno Ford after the game. “Tonight we played hard and we played well — it just wasn’t quite well enough to beat a really, really good Yale team From a coach perspective, I’m disappointed we lost … but we took a huge step forward and this is by far the best we’ve looked.”
Up next, the team will travel to Rhode Island to take on Brown on Dec.9. A quick turnaround finds the Seawolves back at Island Federal Arena on Dec. 12, for a 6:30 p.m. tip-off against Sacred Heart.
Anastasia Warren recorded her third 20-point performance of the season at last Saturday's game. Photo from Stony Brook Athletics
The Stony Brook women’s basketball team battled tough, but was ultimately edged by Bucknell, 64-58, on Dec 3 in Sojka Pavilion in Lewisberg, PA. Graduate guard Anastasia Warren paced the Seawolves with a game-high 20 points as she recorded her third 20-point performance of the season and first since November 14, against Iona.
The Bison outlasted the Seawolves in a back-and-forth contest. The score was tied a total of 11 times and the lead changed five times. Stony Brook led 46-42 with 1:59 to play in the third quarter following a pair of free-throws by sophomore forward Sherese Pittman. Bucknell used a 10-2 run that carried over into the fourth quarter to take a lead it would not relinquish.
Stony Brook battled until the final buzzer as it cut the Bison lead to as little as three points with 22.6 seconds to play. With 22.6 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, Warren knocked down a three-pointer off a feed from senior guard Gigi Gonzalez.
Bucknell was able to close the game out down the stretch as Tai Johnson converted three of her four free-throw attempts over the final 22.6 seconds to give the Bison a 64-58 advantage, a score it would hold on to win by.
Warren finished as the game’s leading scorer with 20 points. The guard shot 9-of-23 from the field and 2-of-8 from three-point range. She grabbed four rebounds and swiped a season-high tying three steals. It marked Warren’s third 20-point game of the season as she also scored 20 points against Manhattan on November 10 (28 points) and against Iona on November 14 (28 points). Her 23 field goal attempts were a career-high.
Graduate forward Nairimar Vargas-Reyes nearly recorded a double-double with nine points and a season-high 12 rebounds. She shot 4-of-8 from the field and six of her 12 rebounds were of the offensive variety. The forward has pulled down 10 or more rebounds in four games this season. Sophomore forward Sherese Pittman scored nine points on 3-of-10 shooting, dished out a career-high five assists, and recorded three rebounds. Graduate guard Daishai Almond scored seven points, while senior guard Gigi Gonzalez totaled five points, four rebounds, two assists, and two steals.
Stony Brook won the battle for the boards by outrebounding Bucknell, 35-31.
“Bucknell is a good team that challenged us today. We will learn from this and continue to get better,” said head coach Ashley Langford after the game.
Egypt’s coral reefs, shown here in a recent photo of the Red Sea in Egypt, remain one of the few pristine reef systems worldwide. Photo by Maoz Fine
By Daniel Dunaief
While global warming threatens most of the warm water reefs of the world, the reefs off the coast of Egypt and nearby countries are capable of surviving, and even thriving, in warmer waters.
That, however, does not mean these reefs, which live in the Northern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba and are along the coastline of Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, are safe.
Karine Kleinhaus
Indeed, several factors including unsustainable tourism, sewage discharge, coastal development, and desalination discharge threaten the survival of reefs that bring in more money than the Great Pyramids.
Recently, Karine Kleinhaus, Associate Professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, published a letter in the prestigious journal Science that suggested it’s time to conserve the Egyptian reefs, which constitute about 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
Along with co-author Ellen Pikitch, Endowed Professor of Ocean Conservation Science at SOMAS, whe urged an expanded and fortified marine protected network. As of now, the MPAs only protect about 4 percent of Egypts’s waters.
Kleinhaus, who is President of the Red Sea Reef Foundation which supports scientific research on the reefs, also urged more effective fisheries management and enforcement and an investment in sustainable tourism practices and infrastructure that mitigates land-based pollution, such as waste-water treatment infrastructure and garbage disposal mechanisms.
Science published the letter just days before the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), which was held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
During the COP27 conference, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) committed up to $15 million to scale reef-positive blue economic growth and conservation finance in the Red Sea in partnership with the Global Fund for Coral Reefs.
Kleinhaus called the investment a “great start” in protecting a “valuable global treasure. It’s great that the US recognizes the value of this place and that the US is working to contribute to preserve it.”
Other work ahead
Kleinhaus added that considerable works lies ahead to protect one of the few reefs capable of surviving climate change. “We can’t turn the clock back right this minute on warming the oceans, [but] we can stop the conditions that are happening along the Red Sea reef,” she said.
Kleinhaus suggested that all the threats to the reefs are significant. Tourists who are not educated about the fragility of the nature they’ve come to see have damaged the reef. Scuba divers, meanwhile, smash into the reefs with their tanks or drag their regulators and other gauges over the reefs, killing or injuring them.
Kleinhaus with a grouper in Eilat.
During Covid travel restrictions, Kleinhaus heard that some parts of the reef, which would have otherwise been damaged by visitors, recovered. Raw sewage and general pollution reaching the reefs also threatens marine life, as is over fishing.
Other reefs, such as the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, have sustained damage from global warming. Kleinhaus described those reefs as a “warning that things are going to change.”
Transplanting parts of the Red Sea reef into other parts of the world to enhance temperature resilience is unlikely to work, Kleinhaus said. These reefs include a diverse ecosystem that supports it, including algae, bacteria, invertebrates and fish.
“We don’t have the scientific knowhow to transplant entire ecosystems at this time,” said Kleinhaus
Evolution of resistance
Kleinhaus explained that heat resistance in the Red Sea reefs developed through natural selection of the coral animals.
During the last Ice Age, the Red Sea got cut off from the Indian Ocean, which meant the temperature climbed and the sea didn’t have any rivers emptying into it. When the Ice Age ended, waters rose into the Red Sea that carried coral from the Indian ocean. The coral that survived had to be tolerant of heat and salt.
“That is the working hypothesis as to why the corals in the northern Red Sea are resilient,” Kleinhaus explained in an email. “They were selected to tolerate hotter water than where they live now.” She called this resilience a “lucky break” for the reefs.
Unusual path
Kleinhaus, who grew up in Westchester, New York, followed an unusual path into marine research.
After attended medical school in Israel at Tel Aviv Medical School, she practiced briefly as an obstetrician in New York. From there, she was the divisional vice president for North America for an Israeli biotechnology company.
Egypt’s coral reefs, shown here in a recent photo of the Red Sea in Egypt, remain one of the few pristine reef systems worldwide. Photo by Maoz Fine
Kleinhaus was reading about the effect of heatwaves and global warming on coral reefs. Upset that they were dying, she decided to make a career change and earned her master’s degree in Marine Conservation and Policy at Stony Brook’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences.
The common thread in her career is that she was working on cell therapy using cells from the placenta, which is an extension of her obstetrics career. Nowadays, she studies reproduction in corals.
Like humans, corals have the hormones estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. Unlike humans, reefs are hermaphrodites and can switch back and forth between genders. Kleinhaus is exploring the relationship between hormones and the stages of reproduction in coral.
Numerous species of coral spawn once a year within 20 minutes of each other. Their reproduction is tied to the moon cycle. Kleinhaus has collected over two and a half years of data and plans to publish those results in a scientific journal.
She started diving in 1993 and said she enjoys seeing the colors, the shapes, the fish, turtle, octopuses, dolphin and barracuda. Invertebrates and sponges also contribute to the “overwhelming and glorious” experience of visiting reefs.
Down the road, she’d like to collect information from the COP27 conference and write a follow-up piece that would include more deep research about policies and conditions of the reef.
The point of the letter was to “highlight that this has to be protected and it’s a serious interest to everybody in Egypt.”
Port Jefferson School District students with violinist Caroline Campbell (center), Port Jefferson orchestra teacher Vanessa Salzman (left) and Paul Newland, outreach director at Stony Brook University (right). Photo courtesy PJSD
In a partnership with Stony Brook University’s Staller Center for the Arts, Port Jefferson music students experienced a nearly sold-out performance by renowned violinist Caroline Campbell.
Accompanied by Port Jefferson orchestra teacher Vanessa Salzman, the close-to-home musical collaboration engages students with innovative performances, as this concert highlighted. “She is quite a violin superstar, so this was a very special event for us,” Salzman said.
Campbell, along with pianist Carlos Avila, was an engaging presence on stage and had the audience enthralled with her spectacular performance of virtuoso violin showpieces, from Hollywood film melodies to the music of Sting.
Port Jefferson orchestra students and their families are invited to attend concerts each year at the university, arranged by Salzman and Paul Newland, outreach director at Stony Brook University. Tickets are provided courtesy of Staller Center Outreach Endowment.
“We are extremely grateful to Mr. Newland and the director of The Staller Center, Mr. Alan Inkles, for providing our student musicians this incredible opportunity,” Salzman said, adding, “We were most appreciative of the time [Campbell] took following the performance to interact with our students and share inspiration to continue pursuing their musical journeys.”
Stony Brook Heart Institute has expanded its current array of TAVR treatment approaches, providing new options for patients with severe aortic stenosis. Photo by Jim Lennon/Stony Brook Medicine
Includes valve technology used for the first time on LI and NYC
Physicians at the Stony Brook Heart Institute Valve Center have expanded the array of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) approaches with two innovative techniques for treating patients with severe aortic stenosis (AS). Aortic stenosis, a narrowing of the aortic valve opening, affects up to 20 percent of older Americans. AS can lead to significant heart problems. For those with symptomatic severe aortic stenosis, the mortality rate within a year can go as high as 50 percent if left untreated.
Stony Brook Heart Institute’s new treatment options offer these potential benefits to patients:
More precise procedures. Building on the existing family of TAVR treatment approaches, Evolut FX, the fourth and latest-generation of the Evolut™ TAVR System Medtronic self-expanding valve technology, is designed to provide physicians with greater ease of use, precision and control throughout the procedure—leading to overall more predictable, deliverable and precise TAVR procedures. On October 5, 2022, the specially-trained Stony Brook TAVR team completed their first FX system procedure.
Reduced wear of the valve. A new type of transcatheter tissue valve, the Edwards SAPIEN 3 Ultra RESILIA™ valve, has the potential to improve valve longevity and reduce the need for reintervention by using enhanced calcium-blocking technology to help reduce calcification and the wear of the valve. On November 2, 2022, the first procedure using the SAPIEN 3 Ultra RESILIA™ valve for an aortic valve replacement was performed by the Stony Brook TAVR team. On the same day, the SAPIEN 3 Ultra RESILIA™ valve was used in an intervention procedure to replace a failed surgical mitral valve. Procedures using the SAPIEN 3 Ultra RESILIA™ valve at Stony Brook were the first on Long Island and in NYC to be performed using this type of valve technology.
For three years in a row (2021-2023), Stony Brook has been named a Five-Star Recipient for Valve Surgery by Healthgrades, the first organization in the country to rate hospital quality based on actual clinical outcomes. The TAVR team is led by cardiovascular surgeon, Henry Tannous, MD, Co-Director, Stony Brook Heart Institute, Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Surgical Director, Structural Heart Program; Smadar Kort, MD, Director, Valve Center and Director, Interventional Echocardiography; and interventional cardiologists Robert Pyo, MD, Director, Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory and Director, Structural Heart Disease Program, and Puja Parikh, MD, Director, Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) Program.
“Many of our patients diagnosed with severe aortic stenosis will, now, based on their individual preferences and discussion with their heart team, be able to opt for the most innovative, minimally invasive method of aortic valve replacement that best ensures their safety and outcomes,” shares Dr. Tannous. “It is an exciting and transformative time both for patients and the medical community, alike.”
“Our TAVR clinicians now have more ways to provide quality care that is customizable to the patient’s needs,” says Dr. Pyo. “Our ever-growing TAVR program continues to raise the bar for cardiac care on Long Island and we are proud to provide our community with the full array of the most comprehensive aortic stenosis diagnostics and treatments under one roof.”
“Our TAVR program is patient-focused in every aspect, from patient selection to procedure planning to treatment and postoperative care,” advises Dr. Kort. “The treatment provided at the Stony Brook Heart Institute Valve Center is distinguished by easy access to our entire team of specialists and our wonderful and dedicated nurse navigator who acts as a liaison between the medical team and the patient and family.”
“The combined expertise of our multidisciplinary teams allows us to bring the best approach to each patient, treating our cardiovascular patients with some of the most advanced technological breakthroughs for optimal outcomes and quality of life,” says Dr. Parikh.
The TAVR procedure involves placing a replacement valve into the aortic valve’s location through a catheter. For those with severe AS who are considered high-risk for conventional open-heart surgery, the minimally-invasive alternative provides a viable option that eliminates the need for traditional open-heart surgery. TAVR is also a surgical treatment option for patients with severe AS who are considered low-or intermediate-risk for conventional open heart surgery. Stony Brook was the first in Suffolk County and among the first in the nation to offer transcatheter aortic valve replacement or TAVR.
For more information about innovative heart treatment at Stony Brook Heart Institute, visit heart.stonybrookmedicine.edu.
About Stony Brook Heart Institute:
Stony Brook Heart Institute is located within Stony Brook University Hospital as part of Long Island’s premier university-based medical center. The Heart Institute offers a comprehensive, multidisciplinary program for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease. The staff includes full-time and community-based, board-certified cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons, as well as specially trained anesthesiologists, nurses, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, respiratory therapists, surgical technologists, perfusionists, and other support staff. Their combined expertise provides state-of-the-art interventional and surgical capabilities in 24-hour cardiac catheterization labs and surgical suites. And while the Heart Institute clinical staff offers the latest advances in medicine, its physician-scientists are also actively enhancing knowledge of the heart and blood vessels through basic biomedical studies and clinical research. To learn more, visit www.heart.stonybrookmedicine.edu.
The Stony Brook men’s basketball team was led by a pair of scorers who reached double figures on Nov. 25, but the Seawolves ultimately fell to Eastern Washington, 81-52, at the Florida International Tournament.
Graduate center Keenan Fitzmorris tied his season-high with 14 points, as he shot 4-of-5 from the field and 6-of-10 from the free-throw line. Fitzmorris grabbed two rebounds and dished out two assists. He was extremely efficient down in the post on offense.
Senior guard Tyler Stephenson-Moore followed Fitzmorris with 10 points on 3-of-9 from the field, 2-of-5 from three-point range and 2-of-2 from the stripe. Stephenson-Moore also contributed nicely on the defensive end, totaling two of the team’s four steals. He drained two three-pointers, which tied for the team lead with junior forward Kenan Sarvan.
“We were down 13 with seven minutes to go and we desperately needed to make a run to give ourselves a chance to win it late.We had a total meltdown the final seven minutes.While we haven’t been able to practice 5v5 live since prior to the Florida game, tonight was really disappointing. We have to be better than we were,” said head coach Geno Ford.
“Fitz and Rocco played well but it is hard to find any other guys who played up to their capabilities tonight.We need to be tougher. The second half has been a real challenge for us all season. Our short rotation doesn’t help but point blank we weren’t tough enough or good enough in either game down the stretch,” he added.
The Stony Brook women’s basketball team earned a 63-58 victory over Texas A&M — Corpus Christi on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 24 to secure a sweep on its Puerto Rico trip. Stony Brook was paced by a trio of student-athletes who scored in double figures en route to its first-ever win over the Islanders.
The Seawolves were led by graduate forward Nairimar Vargas-Reyes who scored a career-high 14 points on 5-of-10 shooting in her return to her native Puerto Rico. Five of Vargas-Reyes’ 14 points came in the fourth quarter as she helped Stony Brook pull away from Texas A&M — Corpus Christi.
After trailing, 26-22, at the halftime break, the Seawolves outscored the Islanders, 41-32, in the second half to seal their fourth win of the season. Stony Brook forced 17 turnovers and scored 21 points off of those turnovers which aided its tenacious defensive effort on Thursday.
Junior guard Shamarla King and sophomore forward Sherese Pittman joined Vargas-Reyes as the Seawolves’ double-digit scorers. King came off the bench to score 12 points, while Pittman followed up her career-high performance against High Point with her first career double-double today with 11 points and 10 rebounds.
“Non-conference is all about learning lessons for March. I’m glad we were able to experience playing back-to-back games because that will benefit us in the CAA tournament… obviously, I’m really happy we won while learning. We are continuing to gain experience and several players are stepping up and flourishing in their roles. Really happy to leave here 2-0,” said head coach Ashley Langford.
Revisiting 5+1 at the Zuccaire Gallery with works by (left to right) Vivian Browne, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Adger Cowans (slide show), Jack Whitten and Melvin Edwards (foreground).
'Carnival of Autumn Leaves' by Alma Thomas
'Hawk's Return' by William T. Williams
'Untitled' by Howardena Pindell
The Staller Center’s Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery recently opened a new exhibition entitled Revisiting 5+1, developed in conjunction with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s current feature exhibition, Frank Bowling’s Americas.
Examining a critical moment at the junction of abstract art, racial and gender politics, and student activism at Stony Brook University, Revisiting 5+1 is a reflection on the historic 1969 exhibition of abstract art 5+1, presenting works by the original artists, alongside a new selection of major works by Black women working in abstraction.
Revisiting 5+1 features work by the six artists in the 1969 exhibition (curated by and including artist Frank Bowling) each of whom created vivid experimental abstract paintings and sculptures. Alongside Bowling, the show presents major work by Melvin Edwards, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Al Loving, Jack Whitten, and William T. Williams, showcasing their early practices of the 1960s and ‘70s. In collaboration with Distinguished Professor of Art Howardena Pindell, Revisiting 5+1 adds a related yet distinct group of six Black women artists, who were also trailblazers in abstraction. Alongside Pindell, the exhibition features works by Vivian Browne, Mary Lovelace O’Neal, Betye Saar, Alma Thomas, and Mildred Thompson, including a never before shown 1971 film by Saar.
Photographs of the 1969 exhibition by Adger Cowans and Tina Tranter and original archival research present new findings on 5+1, while university records and photographs provide contextual history of the concurrent Black Student Movement taking place on campus. The 1969 exhibition coincided with the first semester of courses in a new Black Studies Program, created in response to student activism.
Revisiting 5+1 provides new insight into the significance of the dynamic university context, demonstrating the important history of university-based exhibitions organized by Black artists. At a time when Black artists working in abstraction encountered barriers in both the White mainstream art world, which valued works in abstraction but not those by Black artists, and the Black Arts Movement, which rejected abstract art as apolitical, university galleries provided a unique platform outside the confines of the mainstream art world for engaging with ongoing debates around the relation between art and racial politics.
The accompanying catalog includes archival photographs of 5+1 by Adger Cowans and from the Frank Bowling Archive, four scholarly essays, and profiles of artists included in the exhibition, an interview with Howardena Pindell, as well as a tribute to Pindell’s achievements by Lowery Stokes Sims.
This exhibition honors Howardena Pindell’s four decades of working with art students at Stony Brook University on the occasion of her retirement from teaching. The artistic excellence and social activism that mark her own career have also informed her teaching, setting an example for students and faculty alike. Colleague Katy Siegel says of Pindell’s tenure, “The university has been extraordinarily fortunate to have Howardena’s brilliant presence over the years; she has brought in peers including Maren Hassinger and Kay WalkingStick, and taught generations of younger artists like Athena LaTocha with extraordinary generosity.” After the current academic year, Pindell will become a Toll Professor, leaving full-time teaching but remaining a student mentor.
The original 5+1 artists include Frank Bowling, Melvin Edwards, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Al Loving, Jack Whitten, and William T. Williams. Revisiting 5+1 also presents the work of Vivian Browne, Adger Cowans, Mary Lovelace O’Neal, Howardena Pindell, Betye Saar, Alma Thomas, and Mildred Thompson.
Revisiting 5+1 is curated by Stony Brook University Art History PhD candidates Elise Armani, Amy Kahng, and Gabriella Shypula in consultation with Distinguished Professor of Art Howardena Pindell and under the guidance of Katy Siegel, Distinguished Professor and Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Endowed Chair in Modern American Art, and Karen Levitov, Director and Curator of the Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery. The exhibition is supported by a grant from Stony Brook University’s Office of the President. Additional support is provided by a Humanities New York grant. A generous donation is provided by Hauser & Wirth Gallery, with additional funding from Garth Greenan Gallery, New York. Support is also provided by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Stony Brook University College of Arts and Sciences, Humanities Institute of Stony Brook, Art Department, and Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. The Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery’s 2022–2023 schedule is supported by a generous grant from the Paul W. Zuccaire Foundation.
Revisiting 5+1 is presented in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in conjunction with the exhibition Frank Bowling’s Americas, on view at the MFA Boston from October 22, 2022 – April 9, 2023, and traveling to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from May 13 – September 10, 2023. A digital component and display case are presented in collaboration with the MFA Boston and the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Please check back for the digital component.
Prev
