Stony Brook to meet with displaced students

Stony Brook University president Dr. Samuel L. Stanley Jr. has scheduled an invitation-only meeting Monday with students who were displaced when the Southampton campus closed, but affected students said the court-ordered meeting should be open to the public and media.

"The petitioners and other students -- they are all upset. They feel it should be an open meeting with full transparency," said Russell Penzer, the Melville attorney for six students and a nonprofit group that took legal action last year to fight the campus closing.

University spokeswoman Lauren Sheprow said in a written statement: "This meeting on Monday is being held as part of the obligations under the Southampton settlement agreement, which is in the process of being implemented.

"Those invited include the petitioners, Sen. [Kenneth] LaValle and Assemblyman [Fred] Thiele as well as the cohort of students currently enrolled in the sustainability studies program who were relocated from the Southampton campus of Stony Brook University last fall," she said.

There are 50 students enrolled in the program.

Thiele (I-Southampton) said he wouldn't attend if the meeting is closed.

"The problem is that this is a public university and all of this affects the public and the taxpayers," Thiele said.

The meeting is scheduled for 2 p.m. on campus.

Senior Kathleen Furey, a plaintiff who lives on the South Fork, said the university had already been criticized for acting in private to close the campus. She asked: "What does the university have to hide? What is so secret?"

The invitation from Stanley said university officials "will discuss the transfer of the sustainability program from the Southampton campus to the main Stony Brook campus, your continuing transition to main campus, and some of the developments that are taking place in the sustainability studies program."

In August, State Supreme Court Justice Paul J. Baisley Jr. signed a settlement stating that the university president must apologize to students displaced by the Southampton campus closure and must maintain an environmental degree program for enrolled students.

The settlement also ordered the president to reiterate the university's commitment to the sustainability studies program.

Baisley had ruled last year that Stony Brook officials erred by closing the campus without approval from the 10-member Stony Brook Council, an advisory board.

After the suit had been filed, the council voted last October to scale back the Southampton campus, ratifying the university's decision after the fact.

University officials have said state budget cuts made the undergraduate program at Southampton, which Stony Brook acquired from Long Island University in 2007, financially unviable.

The campus had 525 students and had planned to boost enrollment to 700 before the decision to close.