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One Student's Story by Peter Saltanis When Southampton College sealed its doors on August 12th, promises made to students, faculty, and staff crumbled into a dust of broken dreams, tears, and failed opportunities. From that point onward, Long Island University (L.I.U.) not only said goodbye to its Southampton campus, but also to an Environmental Studies degree that has sustained the region with qualified environmental leaders for almost three decades. I will be one of the last undergraduate students to graduate from Long Island University's Environmental Studies program (through a hardly-comparable extension of Southampton's program transferred to the C.W. Post campus this fall), not to mention one of the last to graduate from a program of its kind in all of Suffolk County. As far back as I can remember, I have been interested in the natural world and I was always committed to doing whatever I could to help the environment through action. From the age of nine, I spent long days rolling up coins left over from my allowance to donate to the National Wildlife Federation and I also volunteered my time picking up garbage on Connecticut beaches each Earth Day. Throughout grade school and high school I maintained focus, yet I was also looking forward to college. I was excited to begin taking courses in a subject I was very interested in, instead of just the general requirements to move forward. When the time came to look at colleges, my choices were severely limited, since very few universities within reasonable distance form my home in Connecticut offered my major of choice, Environmental Studies. I looked at a few options just across Long Island Sound, including: Adelphi University (Garden City, NY), Pace University (Pleasantville, NY), and Southampton College (Southampton, NY). I remember the day I first visited Southampton; I fell in love with it immediately. From the casual atmosphere, to the down-to-earth staff and professors, to the intimate classes held on a beautiful campus just minutes from the ocean beach. On campus, there was also a "buzz" surrounding the many exciting improvements coming to the college including: an innovative new Core Curriculum, a gorgeous LEED -certified library, the promise of a new athletic center, dormitories and environmental center. My decision made and my fate set, I knew I would apply to Southampton for it was the only school that seemed even remotely right for me. Why should I apply elsewhere when I had found my dream school? In early June 2004, a surprise letter arrived for me, FedEx-ed from some company in New Jersey. With that letter, all the joy and promise of the past few weeks (I had been accepted to Southampton and had committed to attending in the fall) vanished instantly. The letter explained, with callous indifference, that Southampton College would be closing and, after my freshman year, I would have the option of transferring to Southampton's "sister" campus, C.W. Post. My burning excitement for a future at Southampton College was extinguished by the news. Completely crushed, I spent that horrible weekend of utter despair in tears. <> A few months later at the end of the summer, I was prepared, yet anxious, for the start of my college career. Feeling somewhat optimistic, I decided to take things one day at a time and try to make the best of my situation. Still depressed over the school's demise, those first few days at Southampton were a blur. I never thought my clarity would come from that first Thursday night in Bob Deluca's Grassroots Environmental Advocacy class. From that time on, everything changed. Hope would light my way through the gloomy, painful year ahead. Using the principles of Grassroots Advocacy, Bob showed me (and the class left dumbfounded by the campus closure) that we didn't have to just sit back and "go with the flow" toward submission and compliance with L.I.U.'s decision to close our school; we could stand up and fight! From a protest rally at C.W. Post, to holding a successful student-led "Q&A" session with members of the L.I.U. Board of Trustees, we (the "Orphans of L.I.U.") tried our best to inhibit L.I.U. from destroying our college. We would not allow our "parent" university to simply bulldoze our dreams and ignore our plight. The "Orphans," a name that became common throughout many Long Island media outlets, would spend two semesters calling attention to the parties accountable and pushing for a future college at Southampton. As the school year drew to a close, I knew I wanted to remain at Southampton and would stay on the campus as long as possible. On short notice, Bob Deluca was willing to hire me as a summer intern at the Group for the South Fork. I was thrilled to be staying in the Hamptons and was ready for whatever came my way while working in my field of growing expertise, Environmental Advocacy. My first project, since I was closely connected to Southampton College (and the Environmental Studies degree), was to do some research on the future of Environmental Studies programs on Long Island. Specifically, I was responsible for finding out which, if any, programs would supply the East End with needed environmental stewards in the future. The results of my query were disappointing. Although the Environmental Studies program is "transitioning" over to C.W. Post as part of the relocation of Southampton's Undergraduate Program, only students who were enrolled in the program as of 2004 will be able to take advantage of it. L.I.U. at C.W. Post does offer a Graduate program in Environmental Studies, so it would seem easy enough to add an Environmental Studies degree to its Undergraduate program offerings, but there are currently no plans for this type of change. Since the major will not be permanently added to its undergraduate offerings, only existing C.W. Post undergraduate classes will be offered as "equivalent courses" to students who wish to complete the degree they expected when they enrolled in Southampton College. All aspects of the Southampton-based degree will be dropped once the last Environmental Studies student has graduated. So what is Environmental Studies anyway? Environmental Studies is the systematic study of human interaction with the environment. It is a broad field of study that includes the natural environment, built environments, social environments, organizational environments and the sets of relationships between them. Current environmental problems have evolved into a complex set of interdisciplinary issues involving ecological, social, as well as physical and biological considerations. Unlike Environmental Science (the science of the interactions between the physical, chemical and biological components of the environment, where physics and chemistry are essential to a comprehensive study of environmental systems), Environmental Studies is more closely connected to social sciences and the range of fields (including environmental advocacy) that relies on human interaction with the natural world. With the closure of Southampton College and the cessation of its Environmental Studies degree, comprehensive undergraduate studies of the Long Island environment in Suffolk County came to an abrupt end. The closing of Southampton College will leave a large void in the education of future environmental leaders for the region and especially the South Fork of Long Island. This fall I will go, grudgingly, to C.W. Post to complete my degree. Wherever I go in the future, I will always cherish my experience as a student of Southampton College, even if it was only for one year. Who knows if I'll enjoy C.W. Post, but it will never be the same as Southampton College, whether in educational merit or emotional appeal. My first home away from home, Southampton College, will live on, inspiring and magical, in my memory. The campus was left abandoned by Long Island University, but I now think of this beautiful place as a flower, full of life, waiting for a new burst of sunlight to grow. Interesting enough, if you add an "n" to S.U.N.Y., it would read "S-U-N-N-Y" as are my hopes for the future of Southampton College and an Environmental Studies program that would feed this tender East End of Long Island.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
GREAT NEWS! |
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