I am writing regarding the recent article “Planting Fields to open new exhibit” (May 30, 2014).
The Planting Fields Arboretum is a valuable asset for our Long Island community and its organizers and supporters are right to celebrate its history and the role it held as the home to higher education programs, including housing the earliest years of the state university’s Old Westbury campus.
Unfortunately, your article noted that the state university campus that opened there in 1968 was, in 1971, “deemed a failure and it was closed by the Board of Regents.”
I beg to differ. It’s true, those early years of SUNY College at Old Westbury’s existence included raucous debates about the structure, delivery and content of its educational program. True to its experimental nature, Old Westbury’s students spoke out and actively sought what they believed would prepare them to make meaningful change in their world.
The efforts and stories of those 86 original students and the faculty and staff members who experienced alongside them the creation of a college are part of the foundation of what has become a vibrant, growing institution. SUNY College at Old Westbury will soon celebrate its 50th anniversary.
Our college is today recognized for the quality of its programs, the dynamic diversity of its student body, and – as it was in those early days – for its commitment to building a more just, sustainable world for us all.
We are proud of the passion of those original students, faculty and administrators. From their passion has grown an institution that has helped educate nearly 25,000 alumni and contributed to the life and well-being of its local community in innumerable ways.
Far from being “deemed a failure,” SUNY College at Old Westbury represents a great success for all of Long Island.
Calvin O. Butts
President
SUNY College at Old Westbury
