By Matt Collette

Yesterday President Joseph Aoun hosted a forum for the university community to discuss further implementation of the Academic Initiative Plan and reflect on the accomplishments and failures of the previous year.

In the 90-minute session, Aoun focused on experiential learning, academic research, an interdisciplinary approach to education and developing a connection to the university. He also talked about fundraising, which increased 60 percent in the last year.

“Fundraising is an investment, and people are investing in us [as a university], people are investing in you [the faculty],” he said.

Aoun said fundraising must be more dispersed than it was in established systems. Now, departments are responsible for much of their own fundraising, part of a move to decentralize the university’s operations from a reliance on the administration.

“I have a very big weakness for excellence, and a commitment to the Academic Initiative in its entirety,” Aoun said, stressing that the most important changes in the future of the university will be rooted in improving academics at Northeastern.

“We have worked to move resources to focus on academic programs,” Aoun said.

Aoun said that in manys ways Northeastern cannot physically meet its own needs as it seeks to mature and develop its academic prospects.

“I have to be very direct with you, very candid, very honest. There is a discrepancy between who we are and our systems and programs. The infrastructure doesn’t match Northeastern’s goals,” Aoun said about an emerging issue of academic space.

Aoun recognized the issue of the Northastern campus expanding into the community.

“We are going to face issues of space,” he said. “Now you know the focus of the university [in the past] has been on dorms. And there is nothing wrong with that. But we need to focus on new research space and facilities.”

Aoun, in an interview with The News said to “stay tuned” for information about new building projects.

After a question about merit and cost-of-living wage increases, criminal justice professor James Alan Fox said more than half of the faculty had not yet responded to a Faculty Senate survey asking for input so they could reach a consensus on compensation issues.

Carol Glod, chair of the Faculty Senate Agenda Committee, who addressed the crowd before Aoun, discussed the relationship between the number of tenure-track faculty and the Academic Initiative Plan.

“There has been a dip in terms of tenure-line and tenure-track faculty [in the past few years],” Glod said. “But the Academic Initiative Plan is bringing a slow but steady increase … a fundamental change.”

Aoun admitted mistakes had been made in dealing with tenure-track faculty, mostly because the process had been “one size fits all” when it should be decentralized to the colleges and departments.

“I think we made mistakes. We made mistakes because [tenure procedures were] a one size fits all approach. The faculty and deans need to move away from a centralized approach [to tenure],” Aoun said at the meeting.

Aoun said that in order for the university to continue to improve its reputation as a world-class research university, it must focus more on Ph.D programs and graduate leadership, as well as continue to focus on research in all departments.