Family of student awarded in death

The family of a Northeastern student who died in 2007 at Our House East was awarded $6.7 million last week, when a judge found the bar culpable.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Fahey ordered the Gainsborough Street bar to pay the family of Jacob Freeman following his fatal fall down a staircase that was not up to city code.

A jury ruled last year the bar violated code by not properly outfitting the stairs with handrails and sufficient lighting, but was not liable for Freeman’s death.

Owners of Our House East said Freeman, 21 at the time, had a blood alcohol level of .208, more than twice the .08 limit to legally drive. They also said the stairs, which led to the building’s basement, were sectioned off-limits to customers. The bar will appeal Judge Fahey’s ruling.

-Zac Estrada, News Staff

NU reach health care research competition finals

Two Northeastern teams are among the finalists in a competition through the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology to create engineering research projects to improve primary health care.

Doctorate student teams Matthew Dubach and Kate Balaconis and Asanterabi Malima, Jaydev Upponi and Chian Yilmaz are vying for awards worth up to $150,000 to continue research.

The award winners will be announced in June.

-Zac Estrada, News Staff

Journalism program teams up with the Boston Globe

Northeastern has started collaborating with the Boston Globe’s Your Town online section this semester to provide original stories written by School of Journalism students.

Students in Lisa Chedekel’s feature writing class are responsible for covering Fenway/Kenmore, Beacon Hill, Mission Hill/Roxbury, West Roxbury and East Boston/Charlestown neighborhoods, and generating stories every two weeks.

Northeastern and Chedekel began working with the Globe last fall with a pilot program in her Journalism 2 class. Other university journalism classes have submitted student-written work to the site.

-Zac Estrada, News Staff