By Jillian Wrigley, news staff
To close out an exciting and memorable Homecoming week, Northeastern elected senior human services major Emily Blackwell as Mayor of Huntington Avenue. The results of the annual competition were announced at the Northeastern men’s basketball game against Boston University on Friday night.
“I am incredibly honored to have been chosen as the 2016 Mayor of Huntington Avenue,” Blackwell said. “The other candidates are all incredible people, passionate about Northeastern and wanting to do so much good as mayor. To have been selected out of such a strong pool to represent a university that I love so much, I’m thrilled, honored and honestly still trying to believe it happened.”
Blackwell will serve as Mayor of Huntington Avenue (MoHA) for a year and her role will be to collaborate with the Student Alumni Association (SAA) and the Office of Alumni Relations to help put on different campus events. Most importantly, the MoHA is in charge of coming up with creative ideas on how to spread school spirit.
“Having events that spread school spirit just makes everything else more fun and lets you get involved in the Northeastern experience,” said SAA Vice President of University Relations Julia Antoniou, a senior mechanical engineering major. “Our past year’s mayor put on a midterm stress relief event. There was free food and games in Curry and it was really fun to see all of the different people who came out.”
Ben Gowaski, who served as the MoHA for 2015-16, said he would advise Blackwell to take full advantage of the university’s organizations.
“My advice to Emily would be to utilize the Student Alumni Association even more than I did,” Gowaski said. “They are a great organization that can help improve the mayor role, events and the school as a whole.”
Blackwell is a representative for the Husky Ambassadors and the National Residence Hall Honorary. She is also involved in the Resident Student Association, a student group that advocates for students’ needs to the university’s Housing & Residential Life office.
For her first act as mayor, Blackwell took over Northeastern’s Snapchat account during Homecoming FanFest.
Blackwell said she was eager for the Northeastern community to get to know her better over the next year.
“I’m excited to jump in getting to know alumni and introducing myself and the role to more students,” she said.
Photo courtesy Emily Blackwell
