The Stony Brook Southampton campus may be virtually closed as far as classes and dorming, but the discussions certainly aren’t.

After an unsatisfactory ending for students, parents and professors alike, local legislators such as Assemblyman Fred Thiele, Jr. and Senator Kenneth LaValle are looking to find an alternative to using the resourceful location at Southampton. After all, New York State did spend $78 million for it, Thiele said.

“I think this semester is going to be a lost semester there,” said Thiele. “My goal is to see that it returns to a productive use as fast as possible.”

In order to do that, he and LaValle, who is also the namesake for the university’s stadium, have sent legislation to the state, asking that a study be done to evaluate the possibility of a new SUNY college at the 82-acre property in Southampton.

“The only way that campus can succeed is if it is community-driven and the decisions of that campus are made not on how they’d help another institution but how they would help Southampton and the East End community,” the assemblyman said.

After learning in April that the state would cut funding up to about $34 million, Stony Brook University administration decided they would close the campus. To educate a student at Southampton campus costs about two and a half times more than a student at west campus.

Current students and parents are also feeling the pain, afterlosing their desired school.

“As a parent of a student who searched for a year to find a college perfectly suited to her,” said Julie Semente, a parent from Staten Island “I am sickened by the action Stony Brook’s administration has taken in killing the college at Southampton just as it was thriving.”

Of the 477 students at Southampton, 373 were full- or part-time undergraduate students, whereas the rest were either at the graduate level or west campus undergraduates. According to Lauren Sheprow, director of media relations, the campus had received a 54 percent increase in admissions applications this past year, along with SAT scores that rose by 100 points.

Because residency is no longer offered, which is saving the university $6.7 million per year, students had the options of dorming at west campus or commuting.

“My child is reluctantly moving to Stony Brook’s campus because the timing of the announcement to eliminate her college at Southampton left her with no other alternative,” Semente said. “I am packing my daughter up to move to a school that she did not choose to attend. And I had to pay for it as well.”

According to Lauren Sheprow, as of July 27, there were 305 Southampton students registered for Fall 2010. Room assignments were selected by 159 of the students.

Professors were also affected by the closing of the campus. Of the 147 faculty and staff members at Southampton, 28 percent were unaffected by the campus’s demise. The remainder, which included 33 faculty members, 67 non-teaching staff, five west campus employees and one Research Foundation employee, were able to meet with the department of Human Resource Services to find job opportunities and provide tips.

Some criticize Stony Brook University President Samuel L. Stanley, Jr. for the suspension of the campus.

“I think he’s done a lousy job,” said Thiele. “I think in the year that he has been the president of the university, the university has taken a major step backwards. It’s true certainly with Southampton.”

Others feel he is doing the best he can.

“I think he’s a good president,” said Assemblyman Steve Engelbright, who, along with his two daughters, graduated from Stony Brook University. “I think he’s faced with some terrible realities, and he’s doing everything he can given the cards he’s been dealt.”

Engelbright was the Curator of Geologic Collections earlier on in his career, as well as being the founding director of the Museum of Long Island Natural Sciences, which is located at the university.

According to Sheprow, Stony Brook has created an advisory committee in order to develop a business plan for the use of the Southampton campus. Some ideas for consideration include developing the campus as a center for creative arts, maintaining and building programs in the Marine Sciences and providing graduate programs. Another feasible option is having a different SUNY campus use it.

The independent SUNY campus that the legislators would like to make would include programs for the arts and possibly a joint collaboration with Southampton Hospital.

This isn’t the first time the campus has been closed. When Long Island University shut down the school in 2005, Thiele and LaValle urged the state university to make the campus a part of it. Now they’re looking to make the space its own entity entirely.

“Our main goal here is to maximize the use of that campus,” Thiele said.