Stony Brook University has entered a ten-year, $7 million partnership with Island Federal Credit Union that will give the credit union title sponsorship for the Stony Brook Arena and the Stony Brook Film Festival and exclusive control of banking services on campus, university President Samuel L. Stanley Jr. announced Tuesday, Oct. 28.
The deal also includes the creation of a banking education program through the Stony Brook University College of Business and support for programs for the new Stony Brook Children’s Hospital and the Long Island State Veterans Home, Stanley said at a press conference.
“With this commitment to Stony Brook, Island will reach across many areas of the campus and in turn Stony Brook can reach every Long Islander,” Bret Sears, the Island Federal Credit Union president and CEO, said.
The 4,000-seat Stony Brook Arena, which was reopened Friday, Oct. 3 after a $21.1 million renovation, will be renamed the Island Federal Credit Union Arena. The 20-year-old Stony Brook Film Festival, which is hosted in the Staller Center each summer, will be renamed the “Stony Brook Film Festival Presented by Island Federal Credit Union.”
The Hauppauge-based credit union will open two retail banking branch sites and ATMs on campus through an agreement with the Faculty Student Association (FSA).
The FSA previously had a partnership with Teacher’s Federal Credit Union, also based in Hauppauge.
“Teacher’s has been a great partner with Stony Brook University, and we’re really pleased we had the chance to work with them, but now Island Federal will be the banking entity at Stony Brook University campus,” Stanley said. “We hope we can continue to work with Teacher’s in other areas.”
Stanley declined to go into further detail at the press conference about how the funds from the deal will be allocated.
“Details about how this will be used exactly, I think, are not established yet,” Stanley said. “We know that certain sums will go to support the Veterans Home and Children’s Hospital. I’m sure there will be some discretion from those entities on how to most effectively use those funds to move the mission forward.”
Stanley said that that Island Federal Credit Union will create “an employee pipeline, a formal internship program and a placement relationship” through the College of Business.
The partnership also will create a student advisory board to “provide product and relationship insights to Island Federal executives,” according to a university press release.
The first home basketball games in the arena will be will be Friday, Nov. 14 for the men’s team and Saturday, Nov. 15 for the women’s team. Rob Emmerich, the associate athletics director for external services, said the new sign for the arena will go up “as soon as possible” and the name change will go into effect immediately.
“We’d like to have it at the first game,” Emmerich said. “That might be a bit ambitious, but we’re going to try.”
A new building for the Stony Brook Children’s Hospital is under construction on the east campus. The university held a groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday, Sept. 24, and the 10-story pavilion is expected to open in 2016, according to a press release.
