By Glenn Billman, deputy campus news editor
University President Joseph E. Aoun announced the veteran center on campus will be endowed by and renamed for the Dolce family at a ceremony honoring Northeastern’s veteran community Friday.
20 years ago, Jim and Leslie Dolce established an education foundation focused on women and children, and later decided to also support veterans by donating $1 million to Northeastern to honor their sacrifices.
“The reason we get to do what we do, and we get to pursue the dream we’re pursuing with our careers, is because somebody else sacrificed,” Jim Dolce said at the Veterans Day event. “And not only did somebody else sacrifice, but somebody’s family sacrificed as well.”
Aoun said Northeastern and the Center for the Advancement of Veterans and Servicemembers strive to support veterans.
“The goal of this center is to take care of the veterans, to help them adapt and insert themselves in this environment, with younger students and older students, and help them thrive, help them find co-ops, help them launch their careers and then help them build the community and help them give back to the community,” Aoun said in his speech.
Lt. Gen. L. Scott Rice, director of the U.S. Air National Guard, also spoke about sacrifice at the ceremony.
“It’s this thing about selfless service, it’s this thing about serving something bigger than yourself, you don’t know when it happens to you,” Rice said. “You don’t know when you decide, ‘Hey I’m going to stand up and be the president of this organization.’ You don’t know when, or why sometimes, you say, ‘I’m going to become a Marine for life and then serve my country in more ways than just as a Marine.’”
Rice acknowledged Neal Finnegan, class of 1961, who is the chair emeritus of Northeastern’s Board of Trustees and was instrumental in creating Northeastern’s Veterans Memorial, which displays a dog tag for every student or alumni who died in combat.
“That’s part of our core, not just core values but core as Americans, saying, ‘We will never give up finding our lost or fallen or missing in action and finding out details about them and going down to the n-th degree to bring them together,” Rice said. “Because this journey is about history. History turns into heritage, heritage turns into culture. Culture is what brings us together as a community.”
Finnegan announced the addition of one dog tag and the update of two others on the memorial. Joseph Eugene Daley’s name was added to the memorial after researchers discovered he was enrolled in Northeastern’s School of Law but left early to join the Army during World War I, before his death in Germany in 1918.
Richard “Dickie” Horwitz and John Robert Alvord’s dog tags were updated after more information about their deaths in World War II came to light. Horwitz’s plane was shot down over Italy in 1945, and he had been classified as missing in action until his remains were found and returned earlier this year. Alvord’s dog tag was amended to include his newly-identified place of death, the Battle of Midway.
In his speech, Aoun highlighted Northeastern’s focus on security, which he said is one of the three themes the university prioritizes.
“We have singled out three themes for research, and one of them is security,” Aoun said. “Our obligation is to protect the armed forces, wherever they are. That’s the mission and purpose of this research. It is an unusual mission, because universities, as you know, shy away from focusing on this type of research, and we’re very proud we have focused on it.”
He also said the Center for the Advancement of Veterans and Servicemembers is a model for the nation.
“Another obligation we have in our mission is to educate our students and the next generations,” Aoun said. “Every university will tell you that, but here I was extremely proud of the fact that we were one of the few universities that decided very early on to focus its learning mission on the veterans.”
Paul Scherlek, a fourth-year finance major and president of Northeastern’s Student Veterans Organization, spoke about the success of veteran students, who have a higher average GPA than civilian students.
“As service members, we ran into the darkness with our heads held high. We were given too much responsibility too young, with too little information, and we were asked to do the impossible,” Scherlek said. “As veterans, we bring that same sense of discipline to universities across the country.”
The ceremony concluded with ROTC cadets laying a wreath on the Veterans Memorial to honor all Northeastern community members who have served.
