Features

A doctoral student in computer science at Stony Brook University is developing HearSay, a non-visual web browser that uses text commands, voice-browsing and keyboard shortcuts to give the blind and those with visual impairments a chance to navigate cyberspace.

Ever since the newly refurbished Roth Quad dining center opened, it has been a never-ending waiting line for greasy cheeseburgers and chocolate frosties. But on Tuesday night, there was a whole new cultural vibe taking place at this eatery.

The Stony Brook athletic department said goodbye to former swim coach Jim DeMarie at a Nov. 15 celebration. DeMarie led a very successful program during his tenure at Stony Brook, and touched the lives of many of his swimmers.

“Let’s have a cup of coffee and to discuss more:” the most common phrase used in American colleges.

Growing up, Lydia Duran, 19, wanted a chalkboard so she could play teacher. This was the foundation for her desire to help kids and minorities.

Growing up in Angola, Emanuel Neto can remember the gruesome images that had him and his family living in fear. A fear that one day a soldier might force you to cook and eat your own child.

When Hillel Kober was hired at the Delancey Street Deli last year, he had no training in the culinary arts. But Koby, as he's called, has found that he possesses a natural gift for preparing food, and he has made the kosher deli a dining destination for many Stony Brook students.

Chinese and American cuisine correlates with differences in philosophical concepts. Chinese is macro, American is micro; Chinese is abstract, American is concrete; Chinese is vague, American is accurate; Chinese prefer sense, Americans like sensibility.

What used to impress me most about the Chinese was their ability to eat cold stewed vegetables for breakfast, balance a family of four on the handlebars of a bicycle and dance with sharpened swords at the crack of dawn. Pretty intimidating stuff. No wonder former Defense Chief Donald Rumsfeld was rattling his saber at the Chinese. But I've recently returned from China with a new epiphany: The saber rattlers have it all wrong. We have only to fear from the Chinese what we fear in ourselves.

Last night, over 2,100 students took a break from studying and made a late-night trek to the Stony Brook Union for the twice-annual Midnight Breakfast, an all-you-can-eat extravaganza provided free to all students by the Faculty Student Association.

In the span of its almost 50-year tenure, Stony Brook University has taught hundreds of thousands of students in classes led by thousands of professors. With so many people coming and going, it’s no wonder that the campus community has formed its own sets of legends.

Stony Brook University has an illuminated campus. These days, it’s difficult to find a path that isn’t lit. Streetlights shine from sundown to sunup, and even some of the worst problem spots on campus have been lit up, shadows chased away and leaving only a faint impression of the danger that these locations once held.

Stony Brook University likes to call itself “Seawolves Country” in honor of its mascot, an over-sized wolf adorned in a red uniform. But most students have a story to tell about a different animal that calls the campus home: the Canada geese.

Matt McAllester's job never really ends, and it's by no means safe. He travels to faraway places and plants himself in the middle of danger - not as a soldier, but as a wartime journalist.

Sprinkles of flurries tumble to the ground one afternoon just as classes let out and students shuffle between buildings past the east side of the library. Even in their haste, many take the time to look up at the scrolling text ticker or the flat screen panels playing cable news that adorn the windows of the School of Journalism's “Newsroom of the Future.”