Normally, The News staff sits down with the president of the university at the end of the year to talk about the biggest issues of the school year. As we do every year, The News requested an interview with President Joseph Aoun more than a month ago, and for the second year in a row that request was rejected.

Despite back-and-forth with the marketing and communications department, the president could not find an hour to sit down with top editors and answer questions off his rehearsed talking points, like global opportunities and the Charlotte satellite campus.

Admittedly, the president isn’t too fond of The News. In 2008, during one of his first sit downs with the paper’s editorial board about campus affairs, he avoided almost every question and instead diverted back to his talking points, leading us to publish the transcript of the interview and making the president’s tactical and dodgy responses public. He wasn’t thrilled. In our 2010 article, we made several minor transcription errors. Two errors laid outside the realm of non-altering sentence structure errors:  the use of “entrenchment” instead of “retrenchment” and a misspelling of the word “felt.” Aoun has not spoken with a member of The News for an interview since 2010.

His avoidance of student journalists is only part of a larger issue at hand. Aoun remains relatively disconnected from campus life, and when he does find free time on campus, he would rather give a pat on the back and a rehearsed speech than answer real student questions about our university.

We understand that his schedule is hectic, and his job is to promote the university and raise money. But there is something to be said when these meetings used to be semesterly, and there hasn’t been one since 2010. We also understand that we aren’t LL Cool J, haven’t served on national panels and most of us don’t have millionaire parents – but that doesn’t mean we, Northeastern’s largest student media organization, shouldn’t have access to the president. This level of disconnect is unprecedented at our university.

The final, official word was yesterday at 5:16 p.m., when Renata Nyul, director of marketing and communications, wrote in an email the president would not be available until after commencement, but noted how frequently the president is on campus and where we could talk to him.

“The good news is that he’s been out there talking about university-wide issues in forums with Q&A sessions that were open to the Huntington News as well (i.e.: SGA and GSG [Graduate Student Government] meetings). Plus he’s on Twitter, goes to games, meets with students a lot, so I feel like he’s been pretty accessible during the semester.”

And he even does more than noted – since our initial request March 12, here is what the president did make time for (in no particular order):

Was interviewed by CNN regarding his son Adrian’s company, Wavii

Announced as new chair of American Council on Education (though we aren’t sure exactly what this means, and it’s unclear if Aoun does either, based on the stories about the announcement.)

-Attended the Homeland Security Academic Advisory Council in Washington, D.C.

-Made a promotional YouTube video for the Presidential Speaker Series (which featured our news editor – we thought it might help land the interview this year)

-Hosted the Presidential Speaker Series with Watson’s creator David Ferrucci

-Met with 14 student presidents of campus organizations (that did not include a representative from The News)

-Presented awards at RISE:2012

-Met with members of Northeastern’s Student Veterans Organization

-Attended Husky Startup Challenge Demo Day

-Dedicated the Bernard M. Gordon Tribute to Engineering Leadership

-Hosted the top 100 (118) influential seniors at his Beacon Hill mansion

-Spoke at the Academic Honors Convocation

-Spoke at the Holocaust Awareness Breakfast

Essentially, this is a list of photo opportunities, where in over a month he met with students at least five times. In total, probably less than a full work day. We doubt that in any of these encounters students challenged him, or asked questions about the future of our university.

And because The News didn’t talk to him, students at large have no way of knowing.