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Stony Brook University receives $60M gift

BY OLIVIA WINSLOW | olivia.winslow@newsday.com

9:45 PM EST, February 27, 2008

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The president of one of the world's most successful hedge fund firms and his wife, both of whom have deep ties to Stony Brook University, are donating $60 million to the school -- the largest individual gift to any SUNY institution, officials said Wednesday during a news conference at Stony Brook's Manhattan campus.

The donation from billionaire Jim Simons, founder and president of East Setauket-based Renaissance Technologies LLC, and his wife, Marilyn, will establish the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics on Stony Brook's main campus. Simons told a crowd of more than 50 that the two disciplines are "at the heart of understanding the universe, its origins, its basic nature."

About $20 million will cover construction costs, Simon said in an interview. The Perkins Eastman architecture firm in Manhattan already has been retained, and a rendering of the building was unveiled Wednesday. Simons said he hopes construction will be completed by 2010. Groundbreaking is expected soon.

The remaining $40 million will fund the center's endowment, which will be used to recruit faculty, provide training and support for graduate students, and bring in 30 visiting scholars every year, Simons said. He added that the university was "pitching in" by funding basic salaries of the seven faculty members planned for the center.

Recruitment is already under way. The university announced that "internationally renowned string theorist" Michael R. Douglas -- a native of Stony Brook, professor at Rutgers University and director of the New High Energy Center -- will join Stony Brook this summer.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who attended the news conference, and Stony Brook President Shirley Strum Kenny praised the Simons' generosity; they now have given $85 million to the university.

Kenny said the gift was "thrilling," coming in the university's 50th anniversary year.

"This is remarkable," Spitzer agreed. "We are here merely to say thank you." Spitzer, who has proposed a $4 billion state endowment for higher education, said support of higher ed was a "moral imperative."

Simons said Stony Brook rescued him 40 years ago by hiring him as math department chair after he had been fired from another job for protesting the Vietnam War. His wife, a Bay Shore native, grew emotional describing the benefits she derived from Stony Brook, where she received her undergraduate and doctoral degrees. She said family members who were bricklayers worked on university construction projects.

"But going to Stony Brook changed my life in so many ways," Marilyn Simons said, near tears. "I met my wonderful husband and I got a wonderful education that opened the world to me. So, I'm really pleased to be standing here today, to be able to give back to the university that's given me so much."

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