In 2021, Mitchell Trinka, the digital media manager for Stony Brook University’s Department of Advancement, approached Judith Brown Clarke, the vice president for Equity and Inclusion and the chief diversity officer at the University, and pitched an idea: create a group that would work to “beautify” Stony Brook’s campus.

“[Clarke] told me, ‘Mitch, I’ve been trying to get this done for a while. And you are going to be the person I work with on this,’” Trinka recalled.

Two years later, the Campus Beautification Committee (CBC) completed its first project: a new mural on the wall adjoining West Side Dining and the LGBTQ* Center. Xiaohui Wang, a graduate student obtaining her MFA in studio art at the University, designed and painted the mural. The mural illustrates the theme of LGBTQ* representation on Stony Brook’s campus. 

Since the mural was unveiled, the CBC has completed several additional projects, the latest one being a mural painted on an exterior wall of the Indoor Sports Complex during Stony Brook’s homecoming celebrations. 

The CBC also completed a mural dedicated to the School of Communication and Journalism near the entrance to the Educational Communications Center, where the school’s broadcast production facilities are housed. 

But Trinka says that being known solely for murals isn’t something the CBC wants. In fact, he wants to explore the possibility of establishing more communal areas around campus, citing the Tanger Outlets in Deer Park, N.Y. as inspiration.

“That got us thinking, what are we doing to not just beautify the space, but actually making it welcoming and accepting of people?” Trinka said.

Specifically, he wants locations to be developed that could “cultivate moments” between community members — something the CBC is already doing by partnering with the Division of Student Affairs to identify spaces that could be improved for those exact purposes.

Ellen Cooke, the associate director of Internal Communications in the Department of Marketing and Communications and member of the CBC, said that she appreciated the effort to help improve the state of a campus that is currently struggling with its facilities, including over $2 billion in deferred maintenance.

“When we look at the things Stony Brook wants to do to present itself to the world, Stony Brook is really getting out there on so many fronts and becoming this amazingly recognized flagship institution,” she said. “But part of our challenge, I think, is to make our facilities reflect the fact that we care … some of our facilities are older, and through a community effort, we can just bring them to life.”

Struggles with Stony Brook’s facilities continue to be a large point of contention within the University. During Interim President Richard L. McCormick’s 2024 State of the University address, he said that the state of the University’s facilities were one of the problems holding Stony Brook from living up to its potential as a “true flagship.” In an Oct. 9 interview with The Statesman, McCormick said the school was seeking support from the New York State Government and SUNY to address these concerns.

“In response to requests from SUNY, we have submitted requests for information on our top four priorities for new facilities, and we’ve given them a great deal of information about the resources we need,” McCormick said. 

While the CBC might not be able to do things like fix flooded dorms or renovate aging buildings, the committee does aim to promote a sense of belonging at Stony Brook — according to Lauren Candela, another member of the CBC who works as the senior communications manager in the Department of Administration and Finance. 

“I have this dream that at some point in the future, through the work of the [CBC] anyone in our campus can look in one direction and see something from the [CBC] that makes them feel included … like they belong here at Stony Brook,” she said. 

Candela also said that the group has had great success with expanding its reach across campus — especially after the completion of Wang’s mural. 

“We went from sort of begging folks to trust us and get on board with us … now we are in a place where folks are approaching us from all across campus to say, ‘hey, the hallway in my building is just a blank white wall — what can we do here?’” she said.

In fact, both Candela and Cooke said that one of the main challenges the committee faced was keeping up with demand of requests to “beautify” areas across Stony Brook’s campus, though Cooke described it as an “awesome problem” to have. 

Trinka, however, said that the CBC was being hampered in its current efforts by budgetary restrictions. 

“Right now, we’re working on a very, very slim budget through [Clarke’s] office, and people would be surprised to learn that we’re doing everything that we do around campus for four or five thousand a year,” he said. “I would love to have the problem of that budget being 25, 30, 40 thousand dollars, because then the things that we could do are even deeper.”

Despite these constraints, Trinka says he is proud of the work the committee has done.

“There’s an [opportunity for] people contributing to the overall atmosphere on campus and creating a legacy of artwork,” he said.