Shelley Germana. Photo courtesy of Stony Brook University
By Daniel Dunaief
Performance on tests, essays and presentations can often reflect as much, if not more, about what’s going on with a student outside the classroom as it does during a course.
A sociologist by training who earned her PhD from Rutgers, Shelley Germana, Senior Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education at Stony Brook University, recognized the impact and importance of health, family life, and financial strains when she taught a class of conditionally admitted students to Rutgers University.
“It’s the first time I realized [student performance] was largely about the non-academic stuff,” said Germana. “I was teaching as if it was just about academics, give them theory, give them concepts, break down the information for them. It wasn’t about that.”
Instead, mental health and social challenges, among others, affected how well they did in class.
That realization changed her career path from a plan to become an educator into one in which she dedicates herself to student success.
Indeed, fast forward to today, and Germana helped create the Summer Academic Resilience Program Stony Brook for students in 2024 who were struggling academically after their first year.
The five credit summer course, which was offered as part of a pilot program for 30 students, was given at no cost to the students. While living on campus and having access to dining facilities, the students not only received classroom support, but also had wrap around services.
This includes accessibility support, mental health aid, and employment. Students took a three-credit general education course and a two-credit academic success course for five weeks.
The students in this course had grade point averages that were close to or below 2.0, which could have led to a suspension.
The effort on the part of the students and the school paid dividends, with four students still below 2.0 in the fall and the remainder above that threshold. At the same time, 11 students earned a grade point average above a 3.0 this past fall.
“What this demonstrates is that this degree of structured, holistic support can be really transformative,” said Germana.
The university is preparing for the 2025 summer session and is hoping to increase the number of student participants to 50.
Embracing a bigger role
Provost Carl Lejuez applauded the work Germana has done with this pilot program and her overall efforts on behalf of student success.
Germana “was in the number two role for undergraduate education for many years and everyone was really aware of how hard she worked and how talented and strategic and student focused she was,” said Lejuez. “I was really excited about the possibility of her being in that role and it has worked out in every way I thought it would.”
Indeed, in academic year 2024-2025, Stony Brook had record enrollment, while the university has also managed to increase student retention to around 90 percent.
“That’s because of the holistic approach she takes,” said Lejuez.
Germana credits a number of other parts of the university for the increasing percentage of students who return for their second year of classes.
“Everybody has a hand in student success and retention, from student affairs to faculty,” said Germana. “It’s all part of the package.”
Germana added that student advisors have had a positive influence on success as well.
In a recent Boyer Commission report that looks ahead to 2030, the commission has specific recommendations for advising, including lowering case loads. This enables advisors to meet regularly with students.
The commission also urges advisors to move beyond academic support and into areas like the transition from high school to college.
“The recommended case loads were lower than what we had at Stony Brook,” said Germana. The administration, from the president to Lejuez supported the university’s investments in academic advisors.
Germana and Vice President for Student Affairs Rich Gatteau run a working group that meet regularly to discuss holistic success and have advocated for greater support for advisors.
Two years ago, Stony Brook invested about a million dollars in adding academic advisors.
The university plans to make a similar type of investment again this year.
“What I love about [Germana] is that she understands traditions and best practices and is always working with people to be innovative and think about new ways to do it.”
Flipping the script
Germana suggested that institutions of higher learning have sometimes approached struggling students by suggesting they have a learning deficit.
While she does not dismiss the fact that some students have preparation issues, she prefers to focus on the assets they bring to the classroom, despite the challenges they face in their lives.
“We should not be underestimating what the students bring” to the classroom, Germana said.
“They are clearly capable or they would not have been admitted,” said Germana.
Like some students at Stony Brook, Germana, who is a native of southern New Jersey, is the first member of her family to attend college.
Higher education is a “transformative experience” that has enriched her life.
She added that the college experience and the opportunities that follow are empowering.
Stony Brook can and should be a “place where they’re going to grow and transform and become citizens of the world,” Germana added.
Best-selling author, influential political commentator and esteemed professor Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. will headline Stony Brook University’s upcoming Presidential Lecture called “A Conversation with Eddie S. Glaude, PhD” at the Charles B. Wang Center Theater, 100 Nicolls Road Stony Brook on Thursday, Feb. 27 at 5 p.m.
Glaude will join Provost Carl Lejuez for this inspiring conversation highlighting the importance of fostering environments that encourage thoughtful and systematic engagement about the pressing issues of our time.
Professor Glaude Jr.’s research and expertise explore the intricate dynamics of the American racial experience. His writings examine Black communities, the complexities of race in the United States and the pressing challenges facing American democracy. From 2009 to 2023, Professor Glaude served as chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. His latest book is We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For.
In addition to the lecture, the event will include a Q&A, book signing, and reception to follow.
This event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited.For more information, call 631-632-6310.
SBU's David Wrobel with Wolfie. Photo by Anna Maria Gounaris
By Daniel Dunaief
David Wrobel, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook University since August, can relate to the school’s students.
Like about a third of the students at the downstate flagship SUNY university, Wrobel is the first member of his family to attend college.
David Wrobel. Photo by John Griffin
“I’ve had the advantage of that social mobility that higher education can provide,” said Wrobel, who grew up in England. To have the opportunity to facilitate that for thousands of other students is “hugely important and meaningful.”
Provost Carl Lejuez appreciates Wrobel’s passion for education and for providing opportunities to students from a wide array of backgrounds and experiences.
“For first generation students, there are some challenges that even the most empathetic, well-meaning person may want to help with, but because they don’t have that experience, they don’t know,” said Provost Carl Lejuez. “He brings both the experience of some of the things these students are going through as well as the humanity and personality that is very empathetic.”
Indeed, for Wrobel, who was dean at the University of Oklahoma for six years before joining Stony Brook, his new job appealed to him because of the opportunity to use education to help students expand their horizons and seek new opportunities.
Stony Brook has been successful in the area of social mobility, enabling students “from more disadvantaged backgrounds coming to the university” to complete their degrees at a high rate, said Wrobel. Higher education can perform the role it should as an “engine of democracy.”
Wrobel, who is a tenured professor in the Departent of History, oversees the breadth and depth of offerings at Stony Brook.
Lejuez suggested that Wrobel relates well to students from every background.
“You never see him at an event talking to other administrators,” said Lejuez. “He’s trying to really get in there and talk to people and make them feel welcome.”
Indeed, within his first few weeks of arriving, Wrobel met with several students who shared their concerns about visual arts, particularly as the music and art departments are about to move during an HVAC renovation project.
Wrobel worked with the students and partners around the university, including staff, the fire marshal and others, to see where they can display artwork and perform music.
The Arts Everywhere effort, which is “big in spirit” but “small in funding” provides an opportunities for the “work of students to be better understood by other students on campus,” Wrobel said.
Research opportunities
As a member of the Association of American Universities, an exclusive club that recognizes universities committed to research and education, Stony Brook provides students with opportunities to contribute to the forefront of new information.
“We have undergraduates doing research on genes that are led by some of the most important scientists in the world,” said Wrobel. These students are “not doing research that is tangentially associated with important science. They are contributing to the research teams” that lead to societal and life improvements.
These research contributions across a wide range of fields can and should address the question some people have asked about the return on investment of a college education.
Students are working in fields such as quantum science, artificial intelligence, climate and health.
“We should take great pride in the fact that, as a university, we are answering that question: why does a degree matter,” said Wrobel.
‘Not a spectator sport’
From left to right: Bonita London, associate dean of research development and communications; Danielle Papaspyrou, senior administrator for staff and faculty affairs; AnnaMaria Gounaris, assistant to the dean; Michael d’Ambrosio, senior director of development; Lois Carter, assistant dean for faculty affairs and personnel; Rachel Rodriguez, director of communications; Carol Davies, assistant director for budget and finance, and David Wrobel, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Photo courtesy Stony Brook University
The university is incorporating into the degree programs the kind of learning experiences that prepare students for success in areas ranging from private and industry positions to government jobs.
Wrobel is eager to demonstrate how “education is not a spectator sport” with every prospective student and their parents. Students become a “full participant not just in learning existing knowledge, but in the process of creating new knowledge.”
At the same time, the university is committed to enhancing the abilities of its educators.
“You work to reward teaching excellence at every level,” said Wrobel. “You make it clear that teaching does matter.”
Teachers need to refine their approaches and methods based on the way students learn, which includes working with technology and its possibilities more effectively than in the past
Wrobel meets with the Dean’s Student Advisory Committee, which includes students from numerous majors, to learn about student needs. These can include expanding quieter study spaces or finding places for more collaborative work.
Additionally, the committee helps select outstanding teaching faculty.
“Faculty go to conferences to improve their research skills,” said Lejuez. “We want to think about teaching in the same way.”
Lejuez appreciates how Wrobel engages with students to understand what would improve the university’s learning environment.
The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching provides opportunities not only for those educators who might be struggling to connect with their students, but also for those who want to improve their craft, Lejuez said.
As a part of student evaluations of their educators, Stony Brook has improved the quality of questions in its educator evaluations for the spring semester, which Lejuez hopes encourages more students to offer valuable feedback.
A dedicated educator
In addition to serving as an administrator, Wrobel hopes to put his experience to work as an educator himself by next spring.
Wrobel could imagine leading or contributing to several possible classes.
He would enjoy teaching a graduate seminar that addresses the history of American thought and culture from the end of Reconstruction after the Civil War in the 1870’s to the end of the New Deal in the 1940s.
At the University of Oklahoma, he also taught an introductory survey class that first year students typically took. The course covered the period from the end of the Civil War to the present.
“I love the idea that I have the opportunity to engage with brand new students when they come to the university,” he said.
Wrobel would like to share a view of America from the Great Depression through the Vietnam War, focusing on John Steinbecks view of the core political and social debates of the time.
Steinbeck was “better than just about any other author at finding what is extraordinary in the lives of ordinary Americans,” said Wrobel.
As for his roles at Stony Brook, Wrobel is “thrilled to have the opportunity to help first generation students and other financially disadvantaged students find their way.”
Lawrence Martin and Patricia Wright. Photos courtesy of SBU
Stony Brook University’s Charles B. Wang Center Theater, 100 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook will host the university’s February Provost Lecture, featuring distinguished anthropologists Patricia Wright and Lawrence Martin on Tuesday, Feb. 11 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Each will each give a brief lecture about their work and its significance followed by a reception with light refreshments. The lecture and reception are free and open to the public.
See press release below for more information:
Did you know that Stony Brook University has important African research and scientific discovery centers? The Turkana Basin Institute (TBI) in Kenya and Centre ValBio in Madagascar are both university Institutes and Centers and co-founded by members of university faculty.
Two SUNY Distinguished Service Professors, Anthropology Lawrence Martin, PhD, co-founder and director emeritus of the TBI and Patricia Wright, PhD, founder and executive director of the Centre ValBio will be speaking about their centers and the impact of thir own research to the local and university community at the upcoming Provost’s Lecture Series. The series, hosted by university Provost Carl Lejuez, showcases Stony Brook faculty who have earned the rank of SUNY Distinguished faculty. The distinguished rank is the highest honor available to faculty in the State University of New York 64-campus system.
About Lawrence Martin: Professor Martin is an expert on the evolution of apes and the origin of humans. He worked with the late world-renowned paleoanthropologist and conservationist Richard Leakey to build a bastion for research on human evolution, Stony Brook’s Turkana Basin Institute, which he directed for 17 years
About Patricia Wright: Professor Wright founded Centre ValBio, the modern research campus in the rainforest of Madagascar where she has combined her research with efforts to preserve the country’s endangered forests and the many species of plants and animals they harbor. She was the driving force behind the creation of Ranomafana National Park, a 106,000-acre World Heritage Site there, which is home to many endangered species, including several species of lemur that she works to save from extinction.
WHEN
Tuesday, February 11, 2025 from 3:30 – 5 p.m., ET (reception to follow lecture)
WHERE
Wang Center Theater, West Campus, Stony Brook University directions
It’s back, bigger than ever, with an added Peter-and-the-Wolf style musical debut.
This year’s version of Science on Stage at Stony Brook University, which brings together the research and life experiences of three scientists with the artistic interpretation and creative talents of three playwrights, focuses on the theme of climate change.
Before the reading of the plays at the free October 28th event at the Staller Center’s Recital Hall, a group of eight high school students and two graduate students will perform an original piece of music composed by Professor Margaret Schedel called “Carnival of the Endangered Animals” (see accompanying story below).
Christine Gilbert with graduate student Emily Gelardi. Photo by Conor Harrigan
The event, which has a seating capacity of 379, which is almost triple the potential audience size from last year, and requires advance registration, is sponsored by the Collaborative for the Earth (C4E).
The organizers of Science on Stage “want people to be thinking about [climate change] from new ways or with new perspectives,” said Heather Lynch, inaugural director of the C4E and Endowed Chair for Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook’s Institute for Advanced Computational Science and Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution.
In these performances, professional actors, directed by Logan Vaughn, share a dramatic reading of the scripts, titled “Ghost Forest,” “Counterfactual,” and “Resplendence.” After the performance, the scientists and playwrights will participate in a question and answer session led by Lecturer J.D. Allen, who is managing editor of NPR affiliate WSHU.
Provost Carl Lejuez, whose office provides funding for the C4E, celebrated the ongoing collaboration between the humanities and the sciences.
“Science on Stage is one of our true interdisciplinary gems,” Lejuez explained. “In a time of such misinformation, the arts provide such a powerful vehicle to communicate science in accessible and inspiring ways.”
Indeed, in addition to hearing an original piece of music and listening to a reading of the plays, audience members will have the opportunity to share their perspectives on climate science before and after the performance.
Christine Gilbert, who holds a joint appointment at the School of Communication and Journalism and the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and is one of the participating scientists, is conducting a study of the effect of the experience with audience members.
Attendees can participate in a short mobile-based survey before the plays and immediately afterwards. A social scientist, Gilbert will follow up with those members who are willing to engage in individual interviews in the weeks after the performance.
Event organizers wanted to know “what is it that’s so magical in the intersection between science, humanity and art” that drew a crowd so large last year that the fire marshal had to turn people away, said Gilbert.
By polling the audience, Gilbert, who was one of the people who couldn’t watch the show last year, hopes to explore the effect of teaching complex science in this forum.
She also hopes to assess how audience members feel after hearing more about climate change and plans to share what she learns with Stony Brook and with the broader scientific community through a published paper.
Heavy and humorous
The scientists and the playwrights appreciated the opportunity to learn from each other and to engage in a creative effort designed to use science, or the life of scientists, to appeal to audiences.
Lynch, who participated in the Science on Stage effort last year, suggested that this year’s plays are powerful and evocative.
“These are deep, adult serious issues,” she said, cautioning that the language includes some cursing and that the themes include loss, parenthood and grief. “This is not Disney.”
To be sure, the plays blend a wide range of emotions.
“With short plays that deal with heavier topics, playwrights will gravitate towards humor,” said Ken Weitzman, Founder and Associate Professor of Theater at Stony Brook, who started Science on Stage virtually in 2020. “It’s how we engage” and commune with an audience.
Counterfactual
Playwright Mat Smart
Author of the play “The Agitators,” about a true narrative describing the 45-year friendship between suffragist Susan B. Anthony and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Smart said he has taken long Uber rides with people whose views differ from his, leading to spirited conversations.
When Smart described his experiences to Reed, they discovered they had similar interactions.
While much of the script involves a combination of conversations and ideas, Smart explained that part of the dialogue in the play came from a discussion he and Reed had about food choices and climate change.
The interaction about cheeseburgers is “based on something [Reed] said to me,” Smart said. Reed explained the high carbon footprint of a cheeseburger, although he urged Smart to cut back rather than eliminate them from his diet.
“The play is about two people who see things very differently who choose to have a dialogue and to have a tough conversation,” said Smart. “They’re both affected by it.”
Ghost forest
Playwright Gab Reisman
Elizabeth Watson, Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolution, teamed up with Gab Reisman, who wrote “Ghost Forest.”
In this play, a climate researcher’s subjects spring to life as she writes an important grant proposal.
While it doesn’t reflect how field research or grant writing typically goes, it does capture “some things that have happened to me,” Watson said.
Her field work has involved considerable challenges, including getting stuck in the mud, being covered in ticks, crawling across mudflats, and being abandoned on a raft in a lagoon.
Watson appreciates how the artistic effort allows her to connect with people who probably aren’t the same ones who would read a publication she wrote or come to a presentation.
She also added that the world has what it needs to deal with climate change and that people need to understand the kinds of partnerships and actions that make a difference.
Resplendence
Playwright Kareem Fahmy
After speaking with Gilbert, playwright Kareem Fahmy wrote “Resplendence,” which follows three generations of a family who try to save their island off the coast of Maine.
The New England State is an important setting for playwright and scientist.
“Maine has such a special place in my heart,” said Gilbert, who has family in the state and attended college at the University of Maine. The pull of the “wild, eastern coast of Maine is so ubiquitous.”
Gilbert appreciated how Fahmy did a “great job of personalizing the context” of the state.
The challenge of preserving destinations, particularly those close to sea level, will likely persist.
“When you do any research about climate change, you have to be aware that this is not just a problem for people living today, but for people 200 years from now,” Gilbert said.
Weitzman said the play was an epic despite its short running time and thought it was “quite touching.”
Beyond the performance
Weitzman suggested that the plays can provide an educational component beyond the confines of the Staller Recital Hall.
While people can’t produce the plays as part of paid entertainment, teachers can read and use them in the classroom. Actors Bill Heck, April Matthis, Tina Benko, Mandi Masden and Taylor Crousore will provide dramatic reading of the plays.
In a short time, the actors are “practically off the book,” as they embrace the opportunity to bring the words to life, Weitzman said.
He suggested the plays offer a glimpse into researchers’ lives. “Here is this person on the front lines. I’m surprised at the angles that are taken” in these plays.
Stony Brook University’s Staller Center for the Arts, 100 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook will present this year’s Science on Stage: Climate Edition on Monday, Oct. 28 at 4 p.m. Doors open at 3:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public but reservations are strongly recommended.
To register, go to: https://bit.ly/4dcDtsi or click here.
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SBU’s Margaret Schedel brings endangered species to life through musi
Margaret Schedel discusses the ‘Carnival of the Endangered Animals’ with the band and conductor Justin Stolarik during rehearsal. Photo by Heather Lynch
Science on Stage at Stony Brook University added a new dimension to the performance this year, as Margaret Schedel, Associate Professor of Music, composed “Carnival of the Endangered Animals.” The original music, which will debut on Oct. 28 at 4 p.m. at the Staller Center’s Recital Hall, is a recreation of the sounds of a wide range of animals who are in danger of becoming extinct.
“It’s melodic, interrupted by moments of trying to translate” the calls from these animals, Schedel said.
Ken Weitzman, Founder and Associate Professor at Stony Brook, appreciates how quickly music can resonate for audiences.
“Music appeals to the emotions,” said Weitzman. “I’m jealous of how quickly music can do in 10 seconds what it takes me hours to do.”
The animals featured in the piece, along with the instrument that captures their sounds, are: the Atlantic Right Whale (Marimba); the A’kikiki bird, which is a Hawaiian honeycreeper (flute); Sumatran Tiger (trumpet); sage grouse (clarinet); Bajii, which is a Yangtze river dolphin; and the Jiangtun, which is a Yangtze finless porpoise (four-hand piano); gorilla (french horn); African bush elephant (trombone); Koala (bassoon); and the penguin (oboe).
Schedel plans to share information about each piece, which eight area high school students and two graduate students will perform, with the audience through a QR code, so they can connect the sounds with the message or visuals she was conveying.
Schedel tried to use a logical progression of the instruments, mixing up the woodwinds, percussion and brass.
Threatened by land development, the sage grouse includes high and low notes from the clarinet that gets covered up by the sounds of a flute and trumpet, imitating the sounds excavators make when they back up and develop McMansions.
Endangered by the spread of avian malaria carried by mosquitoes, the Hawaiian A’kikiki bird had been able to evade these insects by traveling higher up the mountain, where the colder temperatures kills the mosquitoes. That is not happening as much because global warming is enabling the blood sucking creatures to survive at higher elevation.
The sage grouse music starts with a melodic theme on the flute and as it goes higher, the theme becomes compressed. The buzzing brass, meanwhile, gets louder and louder as the mosquito pursues its meal, infecting the bird with a lethal parasite.
Reflecting the struggle for survival these creatures face, the Yangtze river dolphin, which had about 20 members when Schedel first started composing the music, may have become extinct by the time of the performance. That is, in part, why she combined the dolphin and the finless porpoise on the four hand piano.
As for the sounds of the elephant, Schedel recalled a safari she had experienced when she had been in South Africa. Elephants charged at Schedel and her group, who had come too close to the younger ones in the herd.
The elephants growled at Schedel and her companions.
“You can feel it in your chest, the sound waves moving,” she said. “Little by little, the younger ones put up their trunks and eventually a big momma elephant with a broken tusk put up her trunk, which is a symbol of, “we are calm,’” she said. With the trombone representing the elephant, the bass drum connotes its growling sounds.
When she was growing up, Schedel listened to the Leonard Bernstein version of “Peter and the Wolf” so many times that the recording is “nearly dead,” she laughed. She hopes people enjoy her piece with the same energy and excitement, connecting the sounds and the stories with the endangered animals.
Schedel described the experience of creating the music as a “labor of love.”
Stony Brook University announces that noted Kenyan entomologist and evolutionary biologist Dr. Dino J. Martins will begin serving as the director of the world-renowned Turkana Basin Institute beginning on September 1, 2024.
Martins has served as the CEO of TBI (Kenya) Ltd. since August 1, 2022, and has been affiliated with TBI since 2011. In this transition from CEO for TBI’s Kenya operations to serving as director across the entire TBI operation, Martins will lead vision and strategy to build upon the institute’s legacy as a critical site of research and discovery around some of the biggest questions of our time concerning our origins, our current role and responsibilities and, most critically, our future on a changing planet. Martins will oversee all Institute activities including recruitment, hiring and evaluation of faculty and postdoctoral researchers; development of facilities and fundraising.
Martins will succeed Dr. Lawrence Martin, who has served as the director of TBI since 2007 and will be named TBI director emeritus, taking on a new role to support TBI’s fundraising efforts by organizing and leading donor visits to Kenya as well as working on several other projects for the university.
“As Lawrence and Dino have worked hand-in-hand over the last several years, this will be a seamless transition in the leadership of TBI. I am grateful to Lawrence for his outstanding leadership of TBI, and I look forward to working with Dino to build upon the incredible foundation that has been established and to elevate TBI to even greater heights,” said Carl Lejuez, Provost of Stony Brook University.
Martins earned his PhD in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University in 2011 before joining TBI as a postdoctoral fellow at Stony Brook University. Martins had previously graduated with a B.A. in Anthropology from Indiana University and with a M.SC. in Botany from the University of KwaZulu Natal. Martins taught in the TBI Origins field school every semester it has been offered since spring of 2011, when the field school began.
Upon completion of his postdoc, Martins took on the position of resident academic director of the TBI Origins Field School and served for three years before accepting the position of executive director of the Mpala Research Center in Laikipia, Kenya, which is overseen by Princeton University, the Smithsonian Institution, the Kenyan Wildlife Service, and the National Museums of Kenya. During his seven years as director, Dino worked to improve the operations and finances of Mpala and expanded the number of institutions conducting research there.
Martins’ research in the Turkana Basin has included the description of new species of bees, including some of the most ancient lineages of bees known and the discovery of genera previously not recorded from Africa. Martins is also a Co-PI of the Turkana Genome Project, which is bringing together dozens of international scientists to look at the complex interactions among human genes, the environment and adaptation. Dino is actively building links and collaborations globally to expand the scientific frontiers of research at TBI. This includes building on the excellent fundamental research around human origins and evolution, to other disciplines that intersect with the fields of evolution and ecology, climate change and the future of sustainable human existence and development.
About TBI
The Turkana Basin Institute (TBI), a Stony Brook University Institute was established by the late celebrated paleoanthropologist, conservationist and Stony Brook University faculty member Richard Leakey. TBI’s mission is to facilitate the logistics of field research in the Turkana Basin, a remote region of sub-Saharan Africa, by providing permanent research support infrastructure. Fundraising to implement the project began in 2005 and funds have been raised every year since for the construction and running costs of two field campuses.
TBI today houses a sophisticated environment to support the research of scientists and students at its two field campuses, TBI-Turkwel and TBI-Ileret, as well as through an administrative support center in Nairobi. Each of the field campuses comprises 15 to 20 major buildings providing accommodation and dining facilities for up to 60 scientists and students as well as the permanent staff of about 40. In addition, there are multiple laboratories, classrooms for field schools, and conference facilities. TBI has purchased and maintains a Cessna 208 Grand Caravan airplane, which operates as Air Turkana, providing reduced cost flying for education and research that is subsidized by revenue from commercial charters.
Like colleges around the state and country, Stony Brook University is preparing for the possibility that New York State students will no longer be required to pass Regents exams to graduate from high school.
Stony Brook University Provost Carl Lejuez. File photo
During Covid-19, when many schools including SBU made reporting Scholastic Aptitude Tests, or SATs, or American College Testing, or ACTs, optional, the university continued to take a broader view of college applicants.
“The idea of holistic admissions has been something that has been gaining steam for a while,” said Provost Carl Lejuez in a wide ranging interview. Such an approach brings numerous potential student strengths into the admissions decision process.
“Judging by the success we’ve been having, we feel good about our ability to bring in the best students and help them succeed,” Lejuez added.
The admissions process at SBU has been considering additional factors, such as students’ educational experiences and opportunities, the adversity they experienced, and their trajectory and improvement.
A flagship public university, Stony Brook has become an important higher education entry point for students who are first-generation college applicants.
The university does not “want to make the process so onerous that it becomes less successful when you think of low income, first generation students who may not have a lot of the same opportunities” as students in wealthier, more established school districts, Lejuez said. The university wants to be “rigorous and equitable” in the strategy for bringing in the best students.
In the meantime, Stony Brook University recently completed its first full week after the departure of President Maurie McInnis, who had led the school for four years and is now the president of Yale University.
“The mark of a good leader is an organization that continues to thrive when they’ve gone and that is something, because they’ve created the right infrastructure and hired the right people and developed the right culture” that McInnis did, Lejuez said. “While folks are eager to have our permanent leadership in place, things are exactly how they should be.”
Indeed, Stony Brook in the coming days is expected to announce an interim president, who will take the reins for the university while the school conducts a national search, chaired by Stony Brook Council Chairman Kevin Law, for the seventh president.
Since McInnis’s departure, Stony Brook Medicine Executive Vice President Dr. William Wertheim has overseen operations as Officer-in-Charge.
Professor grades
In evaluating professors, Stony Brook uses student-driven evaluations. The university also has peer faculty observe classes and provide feedback.
“We are revising a lot of our promotion and tenure guidelines,” said Lejuez. “We’ve been very, very clear that you have to be an excellent teacher as well as an excellent researcher here at Stony Brook.”
Stony Brook emphasizes the importance of teaching at faculty orientation, where administrators urge new professors to visit and get to know the options available at the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching.
Through various assessments, SBU is working to ensure students are learning the lessons and ideas they should in classes.
The university made its first set of revisions this year by providing a midpoint feedback at the three-year mark for professors on a six-year tenure track throughout the university. Such feedback had been available for faculty in the College of Arts of Sciences previously.
“When you see professors who are struggling with their research or teaching, they should be getting feedback,” said Lejuez. “Sometimes they don’t get it until they’re going up for tenure. That’s not fair to the students or the faculty for that matter.”
To help students throughout their educational journey, Stony Brook invested several million dollars in increasing the number of advisors, while also increasing the support within the tutoring center.
These efforts have paid dividends, as the retention rate from first year to second year for students, which had been in the mid 80 percent range, is moving higher. Within two or three years, SBU would like to see that number reach 92 percent or more.
As for international efforts, the university plans to connect resources in places like the Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya, Centre ValBio in Madagascar and SUNY Korea, which is a partnership between SBU, SUNY and the South Korean government.
“I, as well as several deans and faculty, have made trips to all three in the past year and we are increasing our support,” said Lejuez. “We have also been ramping up fundraising efforts.”
Stony Brook University admissions office where about 10,000 students applied through the school’s first early action program. Photo courtesy Stony Brook University
By Daniel Dunaief
For Stony Brook University, 2024 will be the year of more, as in more college counselors, more classes, more study abroad opportunities, more artificial intelligence and more faculty.
The downstate flagship university, which is a member of the Association of American Universities and has been climbing the rankings of colleges from US News and World Reports, plans to address several growing needs.
“We have invested heavily in new advisors,” said Carl Lejuez, executive vice president and provost at Stony Brook, in a wide ranging interview. These advisors will be coming on board throughout the semester.
With additional support from the state and a clear focus on providing constructive guidance, the university is working to reduce the number of students each advisor has, enabling counselors to “focus on the students they are serving,” Lejuez said.
Advisors will help students work towards graduation and will hand off those students to an engaged career center.
At the same time, Stony Brook is expanding its global footprint. Lejuez said study abroad options were already “strong” in Europe, while the university is developing additional opportunities in Asia and Africa.
The university prioritizes making study abroad as affordable as possible, offering several scholarships from the office of global affairs and through individual departments.
Students aren’t always aware that “they can study abroad in any SBU-sponsored program for a semester and keep all of their existing federal aid and scholarships and in many cases the full cost of that semester abroad is comparable and sometimes even less expensive” than what the student would spend on Long Island, Lejuez explained in an email.
Stony Brook University Executive Vice President and Provost Carl Lejuez. Photo courtesy Conor Harrigan
As for artificial intelligence, Stony Brook plans to expand on existing work in the realm of teaching, mentoring, research and community outreach.
In efforts sponsored by the Center for Excellence in Learning and the Library, the university is holding multiple training sessions for faculty to discuss how they approach AI in their classrooms.
The library opened an AI Lab that will enable students to experiment, innovate and work on AI projects, Lejuez said. The library plans to hire several new librarians with expertise in AI, machine learning and innovation.
The library is training students on the ethical use of AI and will focus on non-STEM disciplines to help students in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
Artificial intelligence “has its strengths and weaknesses,” said Lejuez. “We are not shying away from it.”
As for the community, the hope is that Stony Brook will use the semester to develop plans for kindergarten through 12th grade and then launch the expansion later this spring.
Additional classes
Lejuez acknowledged that class capacity created challenges in the past.
Stony Brook is using predictive analysis to make decisions about where to add classes and sections. At this point, the university has invested in the most in-demand classes in fields such as computer science, biology, chemistry, psychology and business.
The school has also added capacity in writing, math and languages.
Stony Brook is focused on experiential opportunities across four domains: study abroad, internships, research and entrepreneurship.
The school is developing plans for additional makerspaces, which are places where people with shared interests can come together to use equipment and exchange ideas and information.
New hires
Stony Brook is in the middle of a hiring cycle and is likely to “bring the largest group of new faculty we’ve had in many years” on board, the provost said. “This is going to have a big impact on the student experience” including research, climate science, artificial intelligence and healthy aging.
The additional hires will create more research experiences for undergraduates, Lejuez said.
Stony Brook recently created a Center for Healthy Aging, CHA, which combines researchers and clinicians who are focused on enhancing the health and wellness of people as they age.
Amid a host of new opportunities, a rise in the US News and World Report rankings and a victory in the city’s Governors Island contest to create a climate solutions center, Stony Brook has seen an increase in applications from the state, the country and other countries.
This year, about 10,000 students applied to Stony Brook’s first early action admissions process, which Lejuez described as a “great success.”
Amid a world in which regional conflicts have had echoes of tension and disagreement in academic institutions around the country and with an election cycle many expect will be especially contentious, Stony Brook’s Humanities Institute has put together several programs.
This includes a talk on “Muslim and Jewish Relations in the Middle Ages” on February 15th, another on “The Electoral Imagination: Literature, Legitimacy, and Other Rigged Systems” on April 17th and, among others, a talk on April 18th titled “The Problem of Time for Democracies.
True to the core values
Amid all the growth, Stony Brook, led by President Maurie McInnis, plans to continue to focus on its core values.
Lejuez said some people have asked, “are we still going to be the university that really provides social mobility opportunities in ways that are just not available in other places? We will always be that. Everything else happens in the context” of that goal.
Heather Lynch, above, is the inaugural director of the Collaborative for the Earth at Stony Brook University. File photo courtesy Rolf Sjogren/National Geographic
Heather Lynch is hoping to take a few pages out of the Coke and Pepsi playbook, which is rarely, if ever, used in the fields where she works.
A penguin expert who has traveled more than 9,000 miles to Antarctica to monitor populations of these flightless water foul, Lynch, who is the IACS Endowed Chair of Ecology & Evolution, plans to use her new role as the inaugural director of the Collaborative for the Earth at Stony Brook University to accomplish several tasks, including shaping the way people think about environmental issues like climate change.
“Coke and Pepsi understand the importance of psychological research and persuasion,” Lynch said. “The environmental community has not used any of the tools to get at the hearts and minds” of the public.
Scientists have been trying to reach people in their heads when they also need to “reach them in their hearts,” she added.
Lynch hopes to figure out ways to bring in people who are experts in psychology and persuasion instead of adding another model of climate change consistent with so many others that have made similar predictions.
Lynch, whom a steering committee chose from among several qualified tenured faculty at SBU to take on this new role, will also help organize forums in which researchers and participants worldwide discuss pressing environmental issues.
In the forums, Lynch plans to encourage debate about challenging topics on which researchers disagree, such as the role of nuclear power in achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. She also hopes to address the concept and moral hazard of geoengineering.
In recent years, scientists have debated whether geoengineering, in which scientists use chemical means to cool the atmosphere, could exacerbate the problem or give people false hope that taking steps to reduce emissions or mitigate climate change may not be necessary.
Lynch also suggested other “third-rail topics” as population control may be fodder for future Stony Brook forums.
Scientists “don’t discuss controversial things,” said Lynch. “There tends to be an echo chamber in the scientific community. The forum will help us air these issues.”
To be sure, Lynch believes the issue of climate change and the urgency of the climate crisis is well established. The differences she hopes to discuss relate to various potential solutions.
“I’m hoping to focus on things where we disagree,” she said. “We need to get at the root of that.”
SBU Provost Carl Lejuez, to whom Lynch is reporting in this role. File photo
The right candidate
As a candidate, Lynch met numerous criteria for the search committee and for Provost Carl Lejuez, to whom Lynch is reporting in this role.
“Her research is and has been squarely placed to understand climate change and the climate crisis and how we try to move forward toward a healthier planet,” said Lejuez.
Lynch is also a “creative, entrepreneurial thinker” who has an “exciting vision for what the Collaborative can be,” Lejuez said. “She has a real strength in leadership and is very good at bringing people together.”
Lejuez has several goals for the Collaborative in its first year. He would like Lynch to start creating forums that can “live up to the potential of being a leader in creating that academic conference that brings rigor to real-world problems” and is connected to policy, industry and politics and that has clear deliverables.
Additionally, Lejuez would like the Collaborative to move toward an understanding of Stony Brook’s role in the future of climate science, climate justice and sustainability.
New podcasts
Lynch plans to dedicate considerable energy to this effort, cutting back on some of her teaching time. She plans to conduct podcasts with people on campus, speaking with them about their work, what keeps them up at night, what technologies excite them and a host of other topics.
She also hopes to bring in the “brightest lights” to big-stage events at Governors Island and on Long Island.
She is pondering the possibility of creating a competition akin to the entrepreneurial TV show “Shark Tank.” At Stony Brook University, faculty judges could evaluate ideas and advance some of them.
The Shark Tank could give students an opportunity to propose ways to create a greener Stony Brook campus.
As for the psychology and social science of environmental efforts, Lynch plans to work with the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science to explore ways to understand how people think about these issues.
The evidence and impact of climate change increases the urgency of this work and the potential contribution of the university to debating, addressing and proposing solutions.
Earlier this year, Hurricane Otis intensified within 12 hours from a tropical storm to a deadly Category 5 hurricane, slamming into Mexico.
The potential for future storms with intensification that occurs so rapidly that forecasts might not provide warnings with sufficient time to take emergency measures should ring alarm bells for area residents.
Hurricane Otis, whose intensification was the second-fastest recorded in modern times, “should scare everybody on Long Island,” said Lynch. “People think toddling along with business as usual is an option. That is not an option.”
Joseph Pierce, associate professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature and the inaugural director of Stony Brook University’s Native American and Indigenous Studies program. Photo courtesy Stony Brook University
Stony Brook University named Joseph Pierce, associate professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature, the inaugural director of a Native American and Indigenous Studies effort as the university plans to hire three new faculty in this nascent undertaking.
Next year, the southern flagship school of the State University of New York plans to add staff in the English Department, Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies and Anthropology.
“I have been eager for this to start,” said Pierce, a member of the Cherokee Nation who has been at the university for a decade. “We have so much to contribute to broader discussions that are happening around the world. The university is better by including Native American studies.”
Andrew Newman, professor and chair of the Department of English at SBU. Photo courtesy Stony Brook University
Andrew Newman, professor and current chair of the Department of English, who is also chair of a committee advising Axel Drees, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, described Pierce as having a “real national profile,” adding that he was the “right person to be the founding director.”
Starting next fall, students at the university can minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies, where they can study the history, art, social and political interests, languages and cultures of Indigenous peoples.
The focus on Native American Studies will emphasize transdisciplinary topics such as environmental justice and sustainability.
Indigenous scholars should have a “seat at the table,” said Newman, “as they are globally one of the demographics most impacted by climate change.”
Islands in the Pacific are disappearing, Guam is undergoing “significant environmental degradation,” and fires in the Pacific Northwest and leaking pipelines in the United States and Canada are “disproportionately affecting Indigenous peoples,” Pierce added.
Indigenous groups relate to the land in a way that’s different from others, approaching it as stewards and caretakers, Pierce said.
“We see land as a relative,” he noted. “We’re asking very different questions about what it means to care for a place and to care for the environment and to care for the life that sustains it.”
The New York City government proposed plans for flood relief on the lower East Side of Manhattan in the event of future storms like Hurricane Sandy. The proposals included building massive walls and raising elevated platforms, including clearing thousands of trees.
Numerous indigenous groups objected and protested against such plans, Pierce said.
In an email, Carl Lejuez, Stony Brook University’s provost, suggested that a significant piece of Governors Island is climate justice, so the link between the Governors Island effort and indigenous peoples “fits naturally with the goals of the New York Climate Exchange.”
Axel Drees, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at SBU. Photo courtesy Stony Brook University
Lejuez credited Drees as a “driver of this in collaboration with Professor Pierce.” Lejuez added that his office is “definitely providing support to see it come to fruition.”
The most crucial component in the start of this effort is hiring faculty.
“If we build the core faculty across the university, we can definitely consider expanding research and curriculum opportunities,” Lejuez wrote.
Student interest
Students from the Anthropology Department recently invited Pierce to give a talk about some of his current research.
“It was evident that a lot of them have an interest in working toward understanding humanity, what it means to be human,” he said. They also have an understanding of how anthropology as a discipline has sometimes historically “adopted rather unscientific and proto-eugenic methods” in describing and analyzing Indigenous Peoples.
Students are eager for an alternative perspective on the acquisition and acceptance of knowledge.
Pierce believes students have considerable interest in Native American Studies. His courses about Latin American indigenous populations are full.
“There are numerous students who are interested in Native American and Indigenous studies but don’t quite have a cohesive plan of study that’s available to them,” Pierce said. “This is remedying that disconnection.”
Long Island students grow up in numerous towns and communities with Native American names, such as Sachem, Wyandanch, Montauk and Setauket.
Newman added that the staff hopes the new effort can do some “outreach to local schools and provide professional development with kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers. It would be an important mission for the university to educate Long Island as a whole about Native culture.”
