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President Stanley began the academic year by immediately
reaching out to students. On September 2nd the student media
were invited to meet with him to open a conversation. He
talked about his ideas for the future and then went around
the table letting each of us ask him a question. Attending
for the AAJ was Editor-in-Chief Ngoc Vu, and for the SBU AA
E-Zine was myself and Photography Editor Hao Li.
What follows is a close paraphrasing of where President
Stanley wants to take us.
What we'll be looking at is
developing a new strategic plan.
That is going to be a central part of what I do.
Almost everything will be on the table as we
look at it.
So we would be looking at the student experience.
We'll be looking at how we invest in research.
We'll be looking at what's the optimum size for Stony
Brook - how big or small do we want to be in the future.
While we've grown in enrollment we haven't grown in
faculty numbers equivalently, so that puts a stress
essentially on faculty student numbers.
So I think we need to recruit more faculty, bring in
more faculty, and that will be in the sciences as well
as the humanities. The humanities is particularly
stressed actually in this area.
We're going to improve the quality of education.
It's going to increase the value of your degree from
Stony Brook.
The higher the reputation for Stony Brook the more
valuable your degree is going to be.
Since students are the ones in huge classes, many
without TA's, fighting to get into the courses needed to
graduate before they're closed out each semester, we
couldn't agree more with President Stanley! Let's hope
the open dialogue continues.
Jon Hu, Editor-in-Chief
Special thanks to the SB Indie for having parts of the
talk online.
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"This is the third time already. I've met him more in one
month than I did President Kenny in three years. When are we
going get to talk to his wife?"
With that, an SBU AA E-Zine Editor took off for a scheduled
meeting between President Sam Stanley and representatives of
the student media. To alumni from the old school who
remember what it was like to end a semester by going out for
a beer with faculty and classmates, who were on campus
during the days when President John Toll would pop into a
cafeteria at night to eat dinner with students and when
President John Marburger would grab a burger in the
Courtyard Cafe and students felt no inhibition about sitting
down beside him to ask a question - President Stanley
is a refreshing change from the past fifteen years. If only
it wasn't too late for Sunwood too!
His meeting with the students was similar to what he has
been doing since his arrival in June - talking with everyone
to get a good feel for what needs to be done before making
momentous changes... but confident enough to change some of
the more obvious problems while letting those around him
with more Stony Brook experience continue to move forward in
positive ways... quietly moving the campus in a new
direction that faculty and students all agree with. It's
nice to have students believing they can talk to their
President. It's nice to feel hope again.
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