Memo from Campus Senate President Brent Lindquist Regarding Main Entrance Controversy

To: Stony Brook Faculty and Staff
From: Brent Lindquist, University Senate President
Subject: Statement on Main Entrance

Colleagues,

A controversy has arisen surrounding the reconfiguration of the
Main Entrance to West Campus. Many of you have received e-mails
calling for support and last-minute action. I am writing to
address the process through which the Administration and the
Senate have worked on this issue, and provide an update on recent
activity by the Senate Environment Committee.

During the last 12 months, Vice President for Administration
Richard Mann and his staff have met with the Senate three times.
This has included a visual presentation, to the entire Senate, on
the plans for the new entranceway. In addition the President's
office arranged two meetings with the Senate Environmental
Committee showing a detailed model of the entrance configuration
as well as plans for the plantings to accompany the entranceway
redesign. Both meetings allowed ample time for commentary on the
plans and were attended by President Kenny and VP for
Administration staff.

At the February Senate meeting, two senators presented an
alternate plan for the entry road involving a traffic circle. The
alternate plan received criticism both on the size of the circle
and the danger it posed to pedestrians having to cross it to
reach campus from a parking lot. The VP for Administration's
office has continually pointed out that consultant traffic
engineers have advised that placement of a traffic circle would
adversely impinge on the parking garage and the Wang Center.
There was no support from the Senate floor in favor of the
alternate plan.

Within the last week there has been a vote by the Senate
Environment Committee in favor of three proposals requesting that
the administration: delay the Main Entrance reconstruction;
consider alternate designs; and consult "in a more meaningful
way" with the Senate Environmental Committee.

The Senate Executive Committee has been briefed by the Chair of
the Environmental Committee on this vote. The view of Executive
Committee is that the vote was irregular on two counts. -
Contrary to standard procedure for Senate Committees on important
issues, the proposal was distributed by, and the vote held,
solely by e-mail, allowing for no opposing discussion. In
particular, ex-officio representatives to the Environmental
Committee were excluded from any discussion. - The Environmental
Committee consists of 10 voting faculty and staff. The proposal
was distributed to and votes solicited from 16 faculty and staff.

The Senate Executive Committee views this vote as expressing
"the sense of the Environment Committee", but does not consider
it official, due to the above irregularities.

The view of the Executive Committee is that the Campus Entrance
redesign must compromise between the needs to a) improve the
safety of the main entrance traffic configuration, b) preserve
the heritage of the unique wooded character of our suburban
campus, and c) enhance the "business needs and profile" of our
campus by having the main entrance impact our business clientele
(students, parents, colleagues, business leaders) in a visually
appealing and functional manner.

If you have any questions about the Senate process, please feel
free to contact me. For information on the project itself, go to
the web site:

http://www.stonybrook.edu/sb/community/roadway.shtml