Stony Brook University President Andrea Goldsmith led a cross-campus town hall discussion on October 21, the first of a series of events designed to discuss and design a shared vision for Stony Brook's future.

The event, held at the Bauman Center for Leadership and Service, included 100 students, staff, faculty and leadership from both sides of the Stony Brook campus as well as the Stony Brook Southampton.

"Shaping Stony Brook's future together is an exciting undertaking since we are a university of infinite possibilities," said Goldsmith. "While this is a disruptive time for higher education, disruption also brings opportunity. Given the power of our public mission and with the strong support of our great state, this moment in time is our opportunity to craft a compelling vision for accelerating our excellence and impact across all dimensions of education, research, healthcare, and service. As we think about the future of Stony Brook and what we want to accomplish over the next decade and beyond, I want us to think big."

The event featured breakout tables, randomly populated with attendees who then discussed Stony Brook's mission and vision for the future. Each table was tasked with discussing one of the key 'ABC' pillars: Accelerate, Build, and Catalyze. From that starting point, table leaders facilitated far-reaching discussions about all things regarding Stony Brook's next decade. At the end of the discussion period, the leaders presented the thoughts and ideas of those at their table.

"Health emerged as a central theme in our discussion - environmental health, social health, physical health and mental health, as did the ways in which Stony Brook and its students and faculty, its research and innovation programs and educational programs can change our community," said Kevin Gardner, vice president for research and innovation. "82 percent of population health is non-medical care. We want to make sure that Stony Brook is home to a global business community that is powering economic survival on Long Island."

"Reimagining the way we work is one of the original pillars that got people excited," said Wendy Pearson, vice president for strategic initiatives and executive director of Stony Brook Southampton. "Accelerating excellence, building infrastructure, and catalyzing innovation - all of that requires people; that's the engine that drives everything. We discussed ways to invest in that sense of community and belonging to create that engine. When people feel valued and vested, it helps retain students, faculty, and staff. It makes them want to be here and to contribute. There are so many ways we can work together to strengthen that sense of belonging and community."

"One discussion point that emerged was the dual theme of transparency and accountability, and this relates to the structures inside the university and how people can understand how things are supposed to work and whether they're working or not and why," said Bill Wertheim, MD, executive vice president, Stony Brook Medicine. "There's a desire to improve the ability of individuals - students, PIs, staff, everyone - to get their work done in an expeditious fashion and leverage the resources and processes of the organization. There was a sense that this is really what the connective tissue of our university is, across all of our disciplines."

Wertheim also spoke about the need to balance artificial intelligence and students' ability to learn critical thinking skills.

"We can make sure that a Stony Brook student is able to think critically, embrace existing information, and incorporate new information. We also talked about how to best communicate these ideas as a community, and embrace our values."

"The roundtable format was energizing and genuinely collaborative," said Adam Ortiz, department coordinator for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineeringand a graduate student in Tech, AI & Society "At our table, we focused on practical, cross-unit solutions that enhance the student, staff, and faculty experience."

"There's real momentum to build shared capacity across campus," he added. "The ABCs of President Goldsmith's vision provided a clear and actionable framework.."

"It's energizing and inspiring for me to hear from all of you, to hear ideas from some who are new like me, and others who have been here for decades," Goldsmith said. "Your collective wisdom is going to be so important as we craft our bold vision for the future."

Goldsmith also addressed a recurring theme of concern about recent leadership instability.

"I heard it mentioned at three separate tables that people are concerned whether I will stay at Stony Brook long enough to realize the bold vision we are crafting together," she said. "I promised them that I'm here for the long term. Stony Brook is an inspirational university to lead and we have so much potential to continue our upward momentum. I will be incredibly proud to look back a decade from now on a university transformed by the strategic vision we are currently developing."

Goldsmith concluded by reinforcing the importance of cross-campus interaction, and looked forward to future opportunities to engage with members of the university community.

"You never know where the best ideas are going to come from," she said. "They're not going to come from me alone; they're going to come from us, collectively leveraging our experience, history, wisdom and aspirations. Your ideas will help shape the future we're building and I'm so excited about what we're going to accomplish together."

- Robert Emproto