Stony Brook Southampton honored frontline healthcare workers at the annual Lighting of the Windmill on Monday, Dec. 14.

From left to right: Southampton Supervisor Jay Schneiderman; New York State Assemblyman Fred Thiele; Althea Mills, Chief Nursing Officer at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital; Stony Brook Southampton Hospital Chief Administrative Officer Robert Chaloner; Robert Reeves. Associate Provost of Southampton Graduate Arts Campus; and Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Flemming.

The ceremony, a campus tradition, was dedicated to local healthcare providers in recognition of their tireless and continuing efforts to care for the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of participants was limited this year, following health guidelines, and those who attended wore masks and maintained social distancing.

New York State Assemblyman Fred Thiele spoke briefly at the ceremony before giving the honor of flipping the switch to Althea Mills, the Chief Nursing Officer at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital.

Other local officials who attended the ceremony included Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, Stony Brook Southampton Hospital Chief Administrative Officer Robert Chaloner, and other healthcare workers from Stony Brook Southampton Hospital.

The Windmill is an iconic landmark that has been located on the Shinnecock Hills campus since 1888, and was designated a Literary Landmark in 2013. It hosts many different events, including readings, receptions, orientations, celebrations, workshops, and fundraising dinners.

The lighting ceremony, initiated by former Southampton College provost and later United States Congressman Tim Bishop, was was re-invigorated in 2010 by then-Stony Brook University president Shirley Strum Kenny and has continued ever since.

Members of the Stony Brook University community donated a variety of items to help provide comfort to the SUNY students that were placed in a 14-day precautionary quarantine at Stony Brook Southampton.

Care packages with shawls, games, journals and more were donated to the students.

The last four of the students departed the Southampton campus on Monday. Stony Brook Southampton, which accommodated 26 students — 22 from the study abroad program in Italy and four more from South Korea — was selected as one of the locations for the precautionary quarantine because it has the facilities, services, technology, clinical and general staffing capabilities to accommodate New York State Department of Health precautionary quarantine guidelines. All students were pre-screened and had no symptoms of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus.

Joan Dickinson, director of Stony Brook University Community Relations, put the call out for donations to provide “comfort care” to the students, and four groups responded: the Stony Brook Stitchers, the School of Professional Development, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) and the Stony Brook Cancer Center.

Dickinson said the call for donations asked the question, “If you were away from home, what would you need to get through this?”

Items included knitted blankets, clothing, board games, playing cards, journals, books, snacks, toiletries, arts and crafts, as well as some Stony Brook University swag.

Dickinson noted that 17 students in the initial group were Fashion Institute of Technology students studying abroad in Italy, and so an effort was made to provide items that would satisfy their creative energy.

The Faculty Student Association provided hot food to the students each day, following SUNY/NYS DOH guidance on food delivery procedures.

Teams from the Facilities and Services Department, the Provost’s Office, Division of Information Technology/Teaching and Learning Technology, and the Division of Student Affairs including Campus Residences, Counseling Services, Student Health Services, Student Support Team, Campus Life, Environmental Health & Safety, Transportation, and Campus Dining all worked together to ensure that the students received proper academic support with minimal personal discomfort.

An expert team of clinicians provided medical surveillance, including COVID-19 monitoring, as well as support for non COVID-19 issues, mental health and other issues.

Sarah Fisher Davis, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English at Stony Brook University, is looking to train Long Island college and high school students to become local water activists and citizen science storytellers using digital story mapping and ArcGIS software, which helps organizations create, manage, share and analyze spatial data.

The project, titled “Mapping the Story of Long Island Water,” is funded by an $8,000 public humanities fellowship from the Humanities Centers Initiative, a statewide partnership between Humanities New York and a network of humanities centers based at nine New York State universities.

“Because Long Island relies entirely on a sole-source, nonrenewable underground aquifer system for water, the preservation of that system through legislation, corporate accountability, and individual conservation is vital to both human and environmental health,” said Davis.

Because of its complexities, Long Island’s aquifer system — after becoming contaminated by chemicals, sewage, and runoff — cannot be simply cleaned, according to Davis. She cited research from Water for Long Island, a network of groups and individuals who advocate for and defend the aquifers and groundwater resources of Long Island.

“My project will advance water advocacy outside of the usual political and scientific avenues to include the stories and solutions of those who are most vulnerable to toxicants, and whose futures will depend on and shape policies around water wellness on Long Island — our young people,” Davis said.

Her project will be rolled out in two stages beginning this fall when she will teach an upper-level English course titled “Local Environmental Feminisms.”

Read the full story: Grad Student Promotes Water Advocacy Through Experiential Course