At the annual State of the University town hall meeting yesterday, President Joseph Aoun announced the launch of a new program, the Presidential Global Scholars Initiative, which will help sponsor students going on co-ops internationally.
"The goal is to double students going on international co-op," Aoun said. "We're celebrating the next 100 years of co-op and the next 100 years are being launched with a strong emphasis on having co-op locally, nationally and internationally. We are very excited about this."
The program has been in development for a year and a half, and Aoun said the student body and administration had expressed "enormous interest" in making co-op more global.
"We want the opportunity for our students to explore the world," he said. "The world is too interesting to ignore and we feel it would give our students a real chance to position themselves very differently through international co-ops from other students from other universities."
Another new initiative discussed was the launch of a new four-year program, with two co-ops that will be available to students entering in 2010.
"It will be anchored and centered on co-op," he said three times throughout the 90 minute presentation.
The meeting also served to review the university over the past three years since Aoun became president.
"At a time when you hear about layoffs, about freezes, we said let's accelerate this momentum, let's recruit more faculty," he said.
Aoun said this recruitment was possible because of the poor economy. He pointed out that unlike institutions that base their operating budgets on endowment, NU bases it on student tuition, so the the university is not suffering in the ways many others are.
Another new program, that has already been launched is "Plus One" masters degrees, where after obtaining a bachelor's degree, students can earn a masters in one year.
"We want you to be well-positioned to stay for an additional year and get your masters," he said.
The reorganization of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and College of Criminal Justice (CCJ) which by July 2010 will reform the two colleges into three - College of Science, College of Social Sciences and Humanities and College of Arts, Media and Design, was also discussed. Aoun said it was time for the change to occur, regardless of some resistance.
"Change is not easy, but this university has, in ways, changed from the get-go," he said. "We feel it is time to do it again."
Aoun referenced many concerns that have been raised about the process of restructuring the colleges, who many have argued have been shut off and not properly involving the entire Northeastern community from alumni to students.
"No one can say that the process has been closed, and if you hear it, don't believe it," he said.
Provost Stephen Director then took over, and continued the discussion of the organizational changes.
"Change is not new to Northeastern," he said. "Change is what I think Northeastern does very well and has helped move this institution forward. This institution has undergone major transformations in the past."
Director cited some organizational changes that have occurred, such as moving nursing into Bouve College of Health Sciences, but said that he didn't want to discuss the reorganization further since it will be the topic of discussion at next week's faculty senate meeting.
Other changes, such as the expansion of available undergraduate majors through additions of new programs like a bachelor of arts in international affairs were also discussed.
"We need to continue to develop unique undergrad programs as we move forward," he said.
This does not include only attending all on-campus classes. Director said the addition of hybrid courses which would incorporate on-campus lectures with online education, focusing more on the expansion online.
Making dual-degrees more obtainable is another new focus of the university, he said.
"I know that there have been instances where students have great desires to combine their degrees, and we have a process that is less than optimal," he said. "We will be working on that this year to make that a much easier process."
Director continued by echoing many of the things Aoun discussed, such as the addition of a four year co-op program, but expanded most upon the recruitment of new faculty. There have been committee's searching for new employees, and also for interdisciplinary.
"We have a short window of opportunity to be able to go after the very best candidates," he said. "The candidate pools must be deep and must be diverse."
"No one can stop us," Aoun said. "It's a great position to have."
Aoun, Director discuss state of the university at meeting
Published: Thursday, October 1, 2009
Updated: Thursday, October 1, 2009
4 comments
I know that some people have evening classes, so if it's not during activities period, there's always going to be students that it excludes. However, for a meeting so important, I really wish the time could have been different
It is often that many students tour Northeastern and automatically rule it out because they dont want to be here for 5 years. NU simply wants to emphasize that both paths are available.