  To: The University Community From: David Steinberg, President Date: June 16, 2004 Subject: urlLink Relocation of Southampton College Undergraduate Programs Yesterday the University’s Board of Trustees instructed the University Officers to relocate the undergraduate liberal arts and sciences programs currently offered at Southampton College onto the C.W. Post Campus, effective September 2005. The University will continue to offer its outstanding graduate programs at Southampton.
It is with a heavy heart that I write to inform you of this painful but necessary decision, one in which the University Officers unanimously concur. In response to the Board’s unequivocal instructions, the administration now must move thoughtfully to bring this decision to fruition. In the fiscal year ending August 2004, the Southampton campus is anticipated to lose $9 million. The anticipated deficit for the 2004/05 fiscal year is projected at greater than $12 million. The cumulative deficit since inception at Southampton will have reached an unacceptable $77 million by September, 2005. Despite the extraordinary efforts of a great many people on that campus and the embrace of generous alumni, overseers, trustees and supportive citizens on the East End, hard fiscal realities make a continuation of high quality but very expensive undergraduate instruction at Southampton beyond the reach of this University.
For more than four decades, Long Island University has sought to sustain three discrete residential campuses, each functioning in its own environment and developing its own character. The effort to create at Southampton an academically excellent, financially self-sufficient, world-class, small college has been a labor of love for countless individuals over many years. Ultimately, however, the University’s primary obligation always must be to its current students -- both those who study at Southampton College and, equally, those who study elsewhere in the University. Several years ago, after an exhaustive review and analysis, a special committee of the Board concluded that maintaining the status quo at Southampton was no longer a viable choice.
The Board instructed the administration to draft a Master Plan, to redesign a dynamic core curriculum, to begin a capital construction effort and to launch a fundraising campaign. What could not be measured then was the timing and size of future enrollment increases as the result of new curricula and facilities. Despite a modest upturn in potential freshmen for the upcoming year, the required enrollment growth necessary to reduce significantly Southampton’s operating deficits is not foreseeable. Consequently, the loss of tuition dollars has created deficits beyond the University’s ability to stay the marathon course.
The Southampton deficit must not jeopardize the health of the entire University. The dynamic new core curriculum for freshmen as well as the existing courses required for returning students will be taught at the Southampton campus next year and at C.W. Post thereafter. The University is also in active discussions about how best to meet the needs of those students enrolled in marine science after next year. We intend to work with every student to help each one meet his or her educational goals. Every Southampton student will be given a careful explanation of his or her options, a chance to visit C.W. Post or Brooklyn, and an opportunity to receive professional help in any efforts to transfer to other colleges, if that is their choice. Over the next days and weeks, the University will communicate with the many Southampton stakeholders through detailed memos, personal meetings and individual sessions. Faculty, staff and administrators will receive an explanation of the implications of this decision. At every appropriate juncture, timely information and a comprehensive array of services will be provided for Southampton students and staff to help them through this transition. The University’s fundamental commitment to provide each student a superior education and to treat every student, teacher and employee with genuine care, concern and respect will not waiver.
This Board decision will affect individual human lives, each with a unique set of circumstances, cares and concerns. Many at Southampton College have labored long and hard in pursuit of a dream that, sadly, now will not happen there. Although it pains me and my colleagues deeply, the Board’s decision sets the parameters of what the University must do now to achieve its potential in the decades to come. In that spirit, I charge all of us to transform this disappointment into a renewed commitment to Long Island University. 
