Arikah Map

Northeastern University, Boston

Northeastern University
Northeastern University, Boston:NU Logo
Motto Lux, Veritas, Virtus
(Light, Truth, Virtue)
Established 1898
Type Private
President Dr. Joseph Aoun
Faculty 1854
Undergraduates 18,674
Postgraduates 4,268
Location Boston, MA, USA
Campus Urban 67 acres (271,139 m²)
Colors Red & Black
Mascot Husky
Website www.neu.edu
Northeastern University, Boston:NEUBanner

Northeastern University (NU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, in the New England region of the United States. Its campus is located among Boston's Back Bay, Fenway, Roxbury Crossing, and Huntington neighborhoods, partly along Huntington Avenue, Boston's "Avenue of the Arts".

NU is perhaps best known for its distinctive "co-op" program, which encourages students to alternate semesters of study with periods of paid work with co-operative partners in business and industry.


Contents

History

Northeastern University, Boston:YMCA on Huntington Avenue. Opened 1913, it served as Northeastern's home until 1938. The college migrated out of the Y into its own campus over the next few decades. To the right is Dodge Hall.
Enlarge
YMCA on Huntington Avenue. Opened 1913, it served as Northeastern's home until 1938. The college migrated out of the Y into its own campus over the next few decades. To the right is Dodge Hall.

Northeastern was established in 1898 as the "Evening Institute for Younger Men" at the Huntington Avenue YMCA. The Institute catered to needs of the rapidly growing immigrant population in Boston. Within a few years of its formation, it offered classes in law, engineering, and finance. In 1909 the school began offering day classes and it moved to a new location on Huntington Avenue in 1913. The school was officially organized as a college in 1916, and in 1922 it was renamed "Northeastern University of the Boston Young Men's Christian Association." The University continues to rent space for undergraduate housing in the adjacent Huntington Avenue YMCA. In a period of rapid campus expansion, the University purchased the Huntington Avenue Grounds (former Boston Red Sox ballpark) in 1929, but was unable to build on the land due to financial constraints during The Great Depression.

In 1935, the College of Liberal Arts was added to Northeastern, and the University's name was simplified to "Northeastern University." In 1937 The Northeastern University Corporation was established, creating a board of trustees made up of 31 members of the NU Corporation and 8 members of the YMCA. In 1948 Northeastern separated itself completely from the YMCA.

Following World War II, Northeastern began admitting women, and in the boom of post-war college-bound students, Northeastern created a College of Education (1953), University College (now called the School of Continuing and Professional Studies) (1960), College of Pharmacy, and College of Nursing (1964), subsequently combined into the Bouvé College of Health Sciences, College of Criminal Justice (1967) and College of Computer Science (1982), which has since been renamed the College of Computer and Information Science.

Since its inception, the University had been a commuter school with many part-time and evening students, and by the early 1980's had grown to a staggering 60,000 enrollees. In the 1980s, the University decided to drastically reduce the number of enrolled students in an effort to better fit the mold of the more prestigious schools around it.

Since 1996, President Richard Freeland has ushered in an extraordinary stage of institutional change: average SAT scores increased more than 200 points, retention rates rose dramatically, and applications have doubled. President Freeland oversaw Northeastern’s largest expansion ever, opening $455 million in new facilities. The institution has also become substantially more selective, leading to a more-qualified, but less diverse, student body.

During the transition, students endured annual tuition hikes, a re-organization of the co-operative education system, and the introduction of a new academic calendars introduced at the insistence of the faculty. The new calendar features two traditional semesters and two summer "minimesters", and replaced the popular quarter system.

Throughout the transformation, President Freeland's oft-repeated goal was to crack the Top 100 of the U.S. News rankings. With this goal accomplished as they reached number 98 , and with the transformation from commuting school to national university complete, he stepped down from the presidency on August 15, 2006. His successor is Dr. Joseph Aoun, formerly a dean at USC.[1]

The Campus

Northeastern University, Boston:Panorama facing northwest from Ruggles Station entrance on Forsyth Street. From left to right: Ryder Hall, Behrakis Health Sciences Center, O'Bryant African-American Institute, West Village F, Meserve Hall, Shillman Hall, Nightingale Hall.
Panorama facing northwest from Ruggles Station entrance on Forsyth Street. From left to right: Ryder Hall, Behrakis Health Sciences Center, O'Bryant African-American Institute, West Village F, Meserve Hall, Shillman Hall, Nightingale Hall.

Northeastern's campus spans three of Boston's neighborhoods: Back Bay, Fenway, and Roxbury. The campus is something of an urban oddity; despite its location in central Boston, Northeastern is home to a remarkable amount of green open space.

Historically, Northeastern had ranked among the ugliest campuses in the United States. Twice called a “Concrete Jungle” by the APA (American Planning Association) in the late 1970’s and again in the mid 1980’s. The road to Northeastern was paved in blacktop and concrete.

A site master planning competition awarded a multi-million dollar contract to revive and rejuvenate the campus and the process was started in 1988 with the creation of the new Northeastern Quad and Mt Rider. A small oval of land centrally located at the campus main entrance that was refurbished by the donations of the graduating class of 1989.

What was once a concrete square was transformed with brick pavers and granite curb stones, in a scalloped design that would eliminate all square corners, a concept developed by the outgoing class of 1989 in a “Northeastern News” poll and suggestion to the President Box that was presented to the board of Trustees in March 1988. The “No Corners” campaign kicked off with a fund raiser at the Ell Student Center on Parents weekend in October 1988. The later selection of a nationally recognized green space landscape architect in 1990 started a renewal plan that continues today. Since the late 1990’s Northeastern has been considered a model of design for an urban university and has been twice won the “most beautiful new or renovated exterior space” award presented by the American Institute of Architects in 2001 and again in 2004.


In 2003, Northeastern was awarded the prestigious gold medal by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. A unique feature of the University is its well-traveled network of underground tunnels that link 13 major campus buildings for easier travel during inclement weather. However, due to city regulations preventing expansion of the tunnels under major city streets, the tunnels primarily service the buildings on the university's early campus space (i.e., buildings developed during the 1980's through the present are not served by the tunnel system).

Snell Library

Snell Library, the heart of Northeastern's academic life, holds 985,000 volumes and welcomes over one million visitors a year. Snell's Reference, Instruction, and Peer Tutoring programs, Meet the Author talks, and computer labs play an integral role in the intellectual life of the campus.

Snell is home to the Favat Center; a comprehensive and current collection of children's literature and K-12 curriculum resources, instructional materials, and related information in a variety of formats to support courses offered by the NU School of Education for the practice of teaching. Snell is also home to three computer labs operated by Information Services Customer Services. The InfoCommons and InfoCommons II are labs available to all NU students, faculty, and staff. The other lab is used as a teaching lab.

The NU Libraries received federal depository designation in 1962 under the sponsorship of Massachusetts Congressman John W. McCormack. As a selective depository, the Libraries receive forty-five percent of the federal publication series available to depository libraries.

The Snell Library is also home to the Northeastern University archives department (located in the basement level.)

The Snell Library opened in 1990. It was designed by the Cambridge-based firm The Architect's Collaborative (TAC). The cost of the building was $35 million.

West Village

West Village was originally Northeastern University's largest parking area. In the early 1990s, Northeastern plotted the land into several sections to be turned into residence halls as well as academic buildings. The West Village area was opened in 1999 with the opening of West Village A, and was completed in 2006 with the opening of West Village F, which houses the Honors Program offices, the John D. O'Bryant African-American Institute (the original Institute building was leveled during the construction of WVF), housing for freshmen in the honors program (breaking the tradition of freshmen living on the Hemenway Street area of campus), and classrooms.

The construction of West Village has been the cause of some controversy on campus and in the community, namely concerns about construction noise and the loss of parking spaces where the buildings are now located. The Museum of Fine Arts was also concerned about the height of West Village H (which houses the University's College of Computer and Information Science, as well as a dormitory for students over 21 years of age), and whether it would cast a shadow on the Museum during the day. The construction of West Village F brought two complaints: first, the John D. O'Bryant African-American Institute became the only cultural center on campus not to have its own building. Second, the presence of honors freshmen in West Village F angered many upperclass students, because West Village had previously been limited to only upperclassmen housing. Another complaint is the claim that the freshmen in West Village F have nicer housing than upperclass honors students, as the rooms in West Village F are larger and newer. However, the controversy and complaints have been low-key compared to that of other construction and expansion projects the university has undertaken.

The following buildings make up West Village, in order of completion:

Northeastern University, Boston:West Village A North or "High Rise"
West Village A North or "High Rise"

South Campus (Columbus Avenue)

Northeastern University's southernmost section of campus is located along Columbus Avenue in Roxbury, parallel to the Orange line. The University expanded south into Roxbury at the same time as they were building West Village. In 2001, Davenport Commons was opened, providing 585 students housing in two new, state-of-the-art residence halls while 75 families representing a range of incomes have been able to purchase a condo or townhouse at or below Boston’s market value. Davenport Commons also created more than 2000 square feet of commercial space on Tremont Street and has received an enthusiastic response from city residents, students and its occupants. [2]

In the spring of 2004, the Student Government Association and NU's Administration announced plans to build an athletic complex and football field where the Columbus Parking Lot now stands by 2014.

During the summer of 2006, Northeastern University proposed a new residence hall further away from the main campus on Tremont Street, which has received little support from the student body or the community [3]

The following buildings make up the Southern Campus, with their respective opening dates:

Residential Buildings

Administrative Buildings

Athletic Buildings

Parking Lots

Public Transportation

Of the many colleges and universities in the greater Boston area, Northeastern has the best overall access to both intercity and intracity public rail and bus transportation as it is serviced directly by two of the four color coded subway and streetcar subsystems. The larger part of Northeastern's campus is directly adjacent to Huntington Avenue and is accessible by the MBTA (known simply as the 'T' locally); three Green Line (all "E" Branch) stops (Symphony, Northeastern, and Museum of Fine Arts) and two Orange line (Massachusetts Avenue and Ruggles) (which also has commuter rail service) stops. Riders can connect easily via a short ride to the Red line or Blue line by either of the Orange or Green Lines.

Presidents

Presidents of Northeastern (with years of tenure and campus buildings named in their honor):

Academics

Because of Northeastern's historical orientation toward professional education, a sizable portion of the University's undergraduate degree programs are professionally accredited, including all of the programs in the College of Engineering, the College of Business Administration, and the College of Nursing; most of those in Bouvé College; and significant numbers in other units. The School of Professional and Continuing Studies offers part-time evening undergraduate programs which are administered under the supervision of faculty from the day colleges.

Northeastern University recently allotted $75 million towards the "Academic Investment Plan" (AIP). Over five years, the University plans to enhance its academic programs in three areas: undergraduate education, core graduate professional programs, and centres of research excellence. The cornerstone of the Academic Investment Plan is the expansion of University faculty by 100 tenured and tenure-track professors between 2005 and 2009. Additionally, the University plans to expand its undergraduate majors and advance research in areas of interdisciplinary sciences and engineering, namely biotechnology, nanotechnology, and sensing and imaging.

In the 2007 US News and World Report college ranking, Northeastern is ranked 98th on the list of "120 Top National Universities". In 2003, Northeastern ranked #1 for Best Co-ops/Internships (this was the last year that schools were ranked according to this category). In addition, the undergraduate business school ranked 37th in the nation according to Business Week.

Northeastern offers undergraduate degrees through the University's seven undergraduate day colleges listed below.

Colleges and schools

Colleges listed including Schools and degrees offered

School Statistics & Awards

Ten-Year Highlights: 1995-2005


Awards & Recognition

Notable alumni

Notable faculty

Student Organizations

Student Media

Student Groups

General

Ethnic/Cultural

Professional

Political/Religious

Activity-oriented

References


Colonial Athletic Association
Delaware • Drexel • George Mason • Georgia State • Hofstra • James Madison • Northeastern • Old Dominion • Towson • UNC–Wilmington • Virginia Commonwealth • William & Mary
Atlantic 10 Football Conference
Delaware • Hofstra • James Madison • Maine • Massachusetts • New Hampshire • Northeastern • Rhode Island • Richmond • Towson • Villanova • William & Mary
Hockey East
Men's Division: Boston College • Boston University • Maine • Massachusetts • UMass Lowell • Merrimack • New Hampshire • Northeastern • Providence • Vermont
Women's Division: Boston College • Boston University • UConn • Maine • New Hampshire • Northeastern • Providence • Vermont
The Art Institute of Boston • Babson • Bentley • Berklee College of Music • Boston Architectural College • Boston College • Boston Conservatory • Boston University • Brandeis • Cambridge College • Curry • Eastern Nazarene • Emerson • Emmanuel • Harvard • Hellenic • Lesley University • MassBay • Mass. College of Art • Mass. College of Pharmacy • MIT • Mount Ida • New England Conservatory • N.E. School of Law • Northeastern • Olin • Pine Manor • Regis • School of the MFA • Simmons (MA) • Suffolk • Tufts • UMass Boston • Wellesley • Wentworth • Wheelock

    Categories


    Colonial Athletic Association | Atlantic 10 Football Conference | Educational institutions established in 1898 | Law schools in Massachusetts | New England Association of Schools and Colleges | Northeastern University, Boston | Universities and colleges in Boston | Universities and colleges in Massachusetts

    Find

    Find

    Find