Newsday: May
5, 2009
Physician and scientist named new Stony Brook
president
by Karla Schuster
A Harvard-educated physician
and scientist was appointed the fifth
president of Stony Brook University Tuesday,
vowing to leverage the school's partnerships
with two national labs to boost its research
funding.
"Stony Brook is well-positioned to play a
key role in the scientific renaissance" that
will be created by the availability of new
federal funds for research, said Dr. Samuel
Stanley, who takes over as president on July
1.
"With Brookhaven National Laboratory and
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, we can create
a research consortium that can be highly
competitive in this new environment,"
Stanley told staff, faculty and students at
a news conference to introduce him.
Stanley, 55, vice chancellor for research at
Washington University in St. Louis, was
formally appointed in a unanimous vote of
the state university trustees, who met
Tuesday at Stony Brook. He will replace
retiring President Shirley Strum Kenny and
become the highest paid SUNY president with
an annual salary of $650,000 a year.
Of that, $400,000 is from state money and
the remainder from private sources - the
SUNY Research Foundation and the Stony Brook
Foundation.
Trustees and school officials said Stanley's
medical background and his experience
managing a large research budget at
Washington University played key roles in
his hiring.
"The emerging alliance between Stony Brook,
Brookhaven Lab and Cold Spring Harbor Lab is
critical . . . and he's come here at just
exactly the right moment and bearing just
the right credentials," said Carl T. Hayden,
chairman of the SUNY board of trustees.
Besides wanting to boost its research
funding, which now stands at $184 million,
the university faces continuing questions
about the president's role in overseeing its
hospital and medical school.
"To me, the [hiring] is incredible because
of the medical background," said trustee
Michael Russell of Setauket.
For his part, Stanley did not comment
directly on the issue of whether the medical
school dean and hospital chief executive
should report directly to the president. A
panel appointed in 2006 after the deaths of
three children questioned the wisdom of
having a president without a medical
background involved in the day-to-day
operations. Later, the panel backed off that
recommendation, but the governance issues
remain a flash point.
"I'm open to developing the best structure,"
Stanley said, "and one that will outlive
me."
Later he toured the campus with his wife,
Dr. Ellen Li, a gastroenterologist on the
faculty at Washington University. Their four
children attended the vote. Three members of
the basketball team presented Stanley, an
avid pickup game player, with a Stony Brook
jersey and hat.
He arrives at Stony Brook as the SUNY system
is struggling with severe state budget cuts.
In fact, several members of the Graduate
Student Employee Union showed up at the
trustees meeting to protest a proposed hike
in tuition.
Paola Espinosa, 30, a fourth-year graduate
student, was encouraged by Stanley's
research credentials. "I'm really happy the
focus of the president is research because
as graduate students that's what we do."
