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Udall to dedicate Woodland to Prof
Newsday Friday January 2, 1970 Stony Brook – Twelve acres (the preserve is now 26 acres - ed.) of woodland on the bustling campus of the State University here will be dedicated Wednesday to the memory of the late Prof. Ashley Schiff by one of the nation’s top conservationists, former U.S. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall. “I knew him (Schiff) only through correspondence,” Udall said at his Washington office yesterday, “but I came to respect him because I had heard so many fine things about him.” Schiff, who was 37 at the time of his death last October, was a professor of political science at the university’s Cardozo College and an avid conservationist. Schiff often walked with his students among the woodland that will be dedicated in his name. One of the most popular faculty members on campus, Schiff was named by members of the graduating classes of 1968 and 1969 as one of the five professors whose teaching most influenced them. Following Schiff’s death, a group of students and friends walked the path through the woodland as a last farewell to the man whom they describe as their “teacher and friend.” Udall who was active in aquiring millions of acres of land for the national park system during his service under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, said that he wanted to dedicate the Stony Brook woodland because it typified one of his pet projects. “This is the kind of thing we ought to be doing on all our campuses,” Udall siad. “It’s the type of thing I’ve always tried to encourage among colleges and universities… unfortunately, there are many campuses where this has already been foreclosed either by bad planning or lack of land. And that’s part of the sadness.” Udall, who works for the Overview Corp., a consulting firm, said that he had been scheduled to deliver a lecture at Stony Brook when the invitation came to dedicate the woodland in Schiff’s memory.
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