By Kate Augusto

President Joseph Aoun has kicked off a series of online addresses on the myNEU web portal about issues he feels are important to the students, faculty and staff at Northeastern.

“At their best, universities are about ideas and innovative solutions. I hope to express my views on issues, changes and opportunities central to our university, city, nation and the world,” Aoun said in an e-mail to The News. “My goal is simple … to generate thought, discussion and action. I hope students use these communiques as points of discussion.”

Philomena Mantella, senior vice president for enrollment and student life, said there’s no definite schedule of times or topics, but the first announcement said the series will take place during the next several weeks.

“It’s not positioned as a newsletter or newspaper or bulletin,” she said. “It’s really positioned to be more current and topical in many ways.”

Aoun said he has many ideas for future topics.

“I get new ideas every day walking across campus and talking to students, faculty and administration. I am open to suggestions from students about what they view as most important,” he said.

The first topic is titled “The Globalization of Education.” It focuses on promoting international experience and globalizing the campus, based on Aoun’s argument that “the world is not flat.” Technology can make it feel like there are no cultural divides between and within nations, he said, but cautioned that these divisions exist and it’s the responsibility of students to break those down.

The communique was posted on the myNEU Portal Feb. 20, about three weeks after the Council for University Programs (CUP) forum with Aoun.

At the forum, Aoun answered questions, which were presubmitted by students and student groups and chosen by CUP. Aoun drew criticism afterward because at times other members of his administration fielded the questions.

“We saw a need for the president to connect to the students and we knew there were concerns students had. We wanted to get some of those questions answered [by Aoun],” said Scott Hultman, CUP president. “I think [Aoun] did a good job for what it was. Just because he’s the president, doesn’t mean he can answer every question perfectly.”

Aoun later submitted written responses to the unanswered questions, which are now posted on CUP’s website.

Hultman said he’s happy the questions were answered within three weeks.

“There was no question of whether or not he was going to do it, there was just a concern of how quickly he was going to get them up and we were very surprised at [how quick] it was,” Hultman said.

Mantella said this series had no direct connection to the CUP forum. “To say [the forum] prompted [the series] is not a fair description. It’s that his interest has been to engage students, whether it’s from the SGA (Student Government Association) forum, to the eye-to-eye, to his walks around to talk to students,” Mantella said.

Mantella said there’s no particular reason Aoun is doing this now.

“If you go back and look at messages from the president in the past year; since we’ve been developing the academic plan, there have been sporadic messages as the academic plan came out,” she said. Aoun said the most important goal is continuing a discussion on matters that are crucial to members of the Northeastern community.

“What is most important is that we all need to discuss, debate and consider many matters together at Northeastern as we push forward to lead,” Aoun said.

Hultman said that while he does not think myNEU is the most effective way to reach students, he is happy Aoun is attempting to reach out to them.

“I think maybe it’s just that the president is so distant on Columbus Ave and now he’s trying to see the value of trying to connect to the students a little more,” Hultman said.