The first classes were held in 1957 at Planting Fields, the former William R. Coe estate in Oyster Bay, Long Island. According to plan, the young institution moved in 1962 to the historic village of Stony Brook, 60 miles from Manhattan. The new campus consisted then of nine buildings on a wooded 480-acre tract donated by philanthropist Ward Melville, an area resident.
Even before opening its new campus, Stony Brook was preparing for a greatly expanded mission. In 1960, a report prepared for the State Board of Regents declared that Stony Brook's destiny was to become a major research university to "stand with the finest in the country."
Today, the early vision of Stony Brook has been realized. Classified by the Carnegie Foundation as one of the nation's 70 leading research institutions, Stony Brook has exceptional strength in the sciences, mathematics, humanities, fine arts, social sciences, engineering, and health professions.
Major academic units of the university include the College of Arts and Sciences, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the W. Averell Harriman School for Management and Policy, and the Health Sciences Center, which is made up of the schools of Medicine, Health Technology and Management, Dental Medicine, Nursing, and Social Welfare. The Health Sciences Center and the University Medical Center include the 504-bed University Hospital and 350-bed Long Island State Veterans Home.
Research units include the Marine Sciences Research Center, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Institute for Pattern Recognition, Institute for Terrestrial and Planetary Atmospheres, Center for High Pressure Geophysics, Center for Biotechnology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Center for Regional Policy Studies. Externally sponsored research in 1994-95 totaled $95.6 million.
Now situated on 1,100 acres, Stony Brook's campus consists of 121 buildings and more than 9.5 million gross square feet of space. Major-facilities include the five-theatre Staller Center for the Arts, the 4,000-seat Indoor Sports Complex, and the Frank Melville, Jr. Memorial Library, with holdings of more than 1.9 million volumes and 3 million publications in microformat.
With 70 academic departments, Stony Brook enrolled 17,621 full- and part-time students in the fall 1994 semester--11,309 undergraduates and 6,312 graduate and professional students.
The only major nationally ranked university on Long Island, Stony Brook fulfills major regional missions in health care, economic development, and cultural and social development. Excluding the state and county governments, Stony Brook is Long Island's second largest employer, with 9,590 employees.
In 1994-95, the full and part-time faculty (excluding librarians) totaled 1,617, including 486 professors, 361 associate professors, 481 assistant professors, 47 instructors, and 242 lecturers.
Ninety-five percent of faculty members hold doctoral degrees, and 56 percent are tenured. Of the faculty, 449 are women and 184 are members of traditionally underrepresented minority groups.
All faculty members at Stony Brook are engaged in teaching as well as scholarly research. Thirty-nine have been recognized as Distinguished Professors, Distinguished Teaching Professors, or Distinguished Service Professors by the SUNY Board of Trustees.
C.N. Yang, Einstein Professor of Physics and director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics, is a Nobel laureate in physics, while John Milnor, professor of mathematics, is a winner of the prestigious Fields Medal. Four faculty members are current MacArthur Fellows: they are John Fleagle, professor of anatomical sciences; Paul Adams, professor of neurobiology and behavior, Patricia Wright, associate professor of anthropology, and Daniel Monk, assistant professor of Art.
Awards and honors bestowed upon Stony Brook faculty in 1995 include an Alfred Sloan Foundation fellowship, a Catacosinos award, a Mitchell Foundation grant, and a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars fellowship. In addition, members of the faculty were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Physical Society, American Association of Microbiology, American Society of Materials, Institute of Materials, and the National Academy of Sciences. The faculty also includes recipients of the National Medal of Technology, the Fromm Foundation Award, the Editor's Award of the American Meteorological Society, the Pew Scholar Award, the Birnberg Research Award from the Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery, and ASCAP's Deems Taylor Award.