Amid the rolling hills of Long Island's north shore, the State University of New York at Stony Brook campus spreads out over 1,100 acres of heavily wooded countryside. Located at the border of suburban and rural Long Island, equidistant from the western and eastern ends, Stony Brook students enjoy the best of many worlds. The University is less than 60 miles from Manhattan which is easily accessible by train or car. At the same time, the tranquility of Long Island's rural areas and seashores are adjacent to the campus. Stony Brook lies about a mile from the shores of Long Island Sound, and less than 15 miles from the wide sandy beaches of the Atlantic on Fire Island, Long Island's southern coast. The many miles of seashore, in addition to the state and national parklands, offer ample opportunities for recreation.
Although the University was established in 1957, its present form began to emerge during a period of rapid growth in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Within the past few years, the University's size has stabilized and comprises approximately 1,700 faculty and 17,700 students of whom 10,000 are full time undergraduates and 6,000 are graduate students. Academic buildings, laboratories, and libraries form the nucleus of the campus. These are surrounded by six residential quadrangles and athletic fields and facilities. In 1980, University Hospital was opened, a 540-bed research/teaching hospital that is the focus of Stony Brook's medical and nursing programs.
Within the past 30 years Stony Brook has formed many departments and programs that have attained highly regarded national and international reputations. This is especially true within the Physical Sciences, which includes the Departments of Chemistry, GeoSciences, Mathematics, and Physics and Astronomy. As a result, Stony Brook attracts faculty and students of the highest caliber from across the continent and the world.
The Astronomy Program at Stony Brook was formed in 1968 as part of the Department of Earth and Space Sciences and administratively moved in 1998 to what is now the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Since its inception, the program has expanded into broad areas of galactic and extragalactic astronomy, nuclear astrophysics, stellar astrophysics, and cosmology. It offers strong undergraduate programs leading to the baccalauareate and graduate programs leading to the Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy.
Currently, the program has nine full-time astronomy faculty, several visiting and adjunct faculty,and two to three postdoctoral researchers. The faculty has developed a significant diversity of interests, has earned an international reputation, and can provide students with opportunities for study and research in many fields.
Courses taken by undergraduate Astronomy majors are characterized by their small size, rarely are enrollments over 10, and their intimate character. Instruction and learning take place in nearly optimal circumstances. Graduates of the program go on to the best graduate programs or are very competitive for techical positions in industry.