Hundreds of faculty, students and staff members got to find out more about critical university services at August 12’s Stronger Together event.

Larry Zacarese, ERM Vice President and Chief Security Officer speaking with volunteers at the Stronger Together Event. 

Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) — which encompasses the areas of emergency management and business continuity, environmental health and safety, risk management, and public safety — sponsored the event, which featured fire marshals, Environmental Health and Safety representatives, and University Police.

Community members also got the opportunity to tour the Walter J. Hawrys Campus Recreation Center and athletic facilities; learn more about Healthier U, Stony Brook Medicine Community Medical Group, and the Faculty Student Association (FSA); and enjoy each other’s company over healthy snacks and, of course, ice cream.

Giveaways ran the gamut from shirts, cups, pens, notebooks, small footballs and frisbees, to the popular fire extinguisher-shaped stress relievers.

“The Division of Enterprise Risk Management was proud to sponsor and partner with Marketing and Communication, Athletics, Student Affairs, FSA, Healthier U and Stony Brook Medicine to host the most recent Stronger Together event,” said ERM Vice President and Chief Security Officer Larry Zacarese. “It was well attended and a fantastic opportunity for returning students, faculty and staff to interact, share some snacks and, most importantly, a few laughs and smiles.”

Information and demonstrations included fire and overall safety guides, a CPR practice mannequin and an AED unit. There was a fire truck to explore and the all-student Stony Brook Volunteer Ambulance Corp (SBVAC) vehicle, with two students available to describe their services.

Student Affairs ran nearly a dozen tours of the Rec Center, with about 70 people coming through the doors.

Event participants also got to tour Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium, and other athletic facilities. Along the way, they got to hear about sports history, triumphs and expansion at SBU from Adam McLeod, associate athletic director for Facilities, Operations, and Capital Planning.

Jessica Nelson, marketing assistant for the Stony Brook Medicine Community Medical Group, was also happy to “spread awareness of the local practices and physicians with specialties that may be beneficial for students and others to know.”

All in all, another highly successful Stronger Together event!

Read the full story: https://news.stonybrook.edu/university/stronger-together-event-has-minimum-risk-but-maximum-fun/

Stony Brook University writing and rhetoric lecturer Joseph Labriola is penning a new chapter in his academic career — that of a beach beautifier and ocean savior.

Stony Brook University writing and rhetoric professor Joseph Labriola with some of the tennis balls he found on a beach cleanup. Photo by John Griffin. 

And we’re not talking a lonely figure combing the shores of Long Island in a one-man war against pollutants. There’s safety and solidarity in numbers for Labriola, who founded the Long Island North Shore Beach Cleaners group, created a beach waste art installation at the Stony Brook Village Center and has even given a TEDx talk on the subject of ocean plastic pollution and environmental advocacy.

He announced his new partnership with Wilson — the tennis company — to recycle the balls he finds on beach cleans. Wilson actually reached out to him after seeing his YouTube channel, where he documents some of the beach trash he found.

Wilson, excited to help in Labriola’s efforts to bring awareness to tennis ball ocean pollution, offered to donate recycling bins for his crusade.

“This work is vital in removing synthetic polymers and toxic chemicals from marine environments,” Labriola said.

His log follows:

• Day One: Collected 180 tennis balls from McAllister County Park.
• Day Two: Collected 197 tennis balls from West Beach in Port Jefferson, NY.
• Day Three (Planned): Return to McAllister County Park.
• Day Four (Planned): Will host a beach clean event in the near-future where I announce ahead of time for other beachgoers to collect and save tennis balls to then drop off for my bin — culminating in my 1,000 tennis ball collection challenge.

“Moving forward, I am excited to record several upcoming YouTube videos chronicling this project’s progress. While these efforts are just another small step in curbing ocean pollution, it is a fantastic initiative to shift our energy and conversations in the right direction via partnerships with big business — one ball at a time,” said Labriola.

Read the full story:  https://news.stonybrook.edu/university/saving-the-oceans-one-tennis-ball-at-a-time/

The Stony Brook Medicine Healthy Libraries Program (HeLP) — featured recently on WCBS-TV — is a partnership between Suffolk County’s public libraries and a unique group of faculty supervisors and students in training representing the fields of social work, public health, nursing, nutrition, and library science working together to provide access to both in-person and virtual healthcare-related resources for public library patrons and librarians throughout Suffolk County. The program looks to enhance the health and well-being of Suffolk residents through library programming, health screenings and referral to local health and social services, education, and dissemination of information on current health topics impacting our communities.

Volunteers of the Health Libraries Program. 

SBMHeLP began in Fall 2019 as an in-person program, but had to shift to remote during the COVID pandemic, offering virtual meetings, one-on-one appointments and webinars on a wide range of health-related topics.

Program Goals

• Provide evidence-based health information, screening and case management to a diverse community of patrons in the public library setting
• Refer patrons to promote access to appropriate health and social services programs locally that will address their health and social support needs
• For students to experience an interprofessional team and demonstrate the core competencies based on the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC)
• To support programs and training, and to provide resources for librarians and their patrons

Lisa Benz Scott, PhD, Director of the Program in Public Health at Stony Brook University, is the founding director of HeLP and leads an inter-professional faculty team of health science professors who collaborate to recruit, train and supervise approximately 25 students a semester involved in the program.

The program, which achieved more than 900 patron contacts during the pandemic, will be expanding from five libraries to eight in Suffolk County beginning in September 2021. The current library locations are Huntington (Main and Station), Patchogue-Medford, Longwood and Brentwood.

SBMHeLP is supported in part by the American Heart Association of Long Island.

Read the full story: https://news.stonybrook.edu/university/healthy-libraries-program-brings-vital-health-screenings-and-information-to-the-public/