Following the spring announcement that Northeastern would add a fourth undergraduate campus to its network by absorbing Marymount Manhattan College, a performing arts-focused college in New York City, Northeastern Chancellor and Senior Vice President for Learning Ken Henderson said the university remains committed to maintaining Marymount Manhattan College’s musical theatre and dance programs during an Oct. 25 open interview with a Marymount vice president.

During the conversation, which was moderated by Marymount’s Associate Vice President for Strategic Initiatives Katie LeBesco and held in Marymount’s Theresa Lang Theatre, Henderson discussed how Northeastern will handle the college’s students, programs and legacy after its merger with Northeastern. 

In May, Northeastern announced its merger with Marymount Manhattan College, or MMC, a liberal arts school with about 1,400 students known for its performing arts programs. The institutions’ union, which Henderson said has been “two years in the making,” will mark Northeastern’s third merger and 14th campus. The merger took place amid declining enrollment at Marymount. 

During the interview, Henderson affirmed Northeastern’s commitment to preserving the essence of the Manhattan institution, which, after the merger, will be called “Northeastern University – New York City.”

“There’s a commitment for Northeastern moving forward in the agreement that theatre, dance, acting, these are things we are maintaining,” Henderson said. “And that’s critical for us.”

Henderson also said Northeastern plans on creating a center to maintain Marymount’s archives and offer programming to maintain the institution’s legacy. 

“It will be home to a lot of the legacy in terms of traditions of Marymount moving forward,” he said. “So there will be a mechanism, a container, that is kept for prosperity in terms of ensuring that those legacy pieces … are kept and maintained.”

Based on Henderson’s description, the center appears similar to the Mills Institute, which Northeastern created in 2022 after its merger with Mills College in Oakland, a women’s institution, “to honor and advance Mills’ legacy of racial and gender educational inclusion and equity.”

While Henderson said the two institutions are still working through the approval process by the necessary state and federal regulatory agencies — the Northeastern and MMC governing boards have both already approved of the move —  he noted the merger will “hopefully be finalized in the next few months.” 

He mentioned that the timeline is out of the institutions’ control.

The Northeastern Chancellor also encouraged Marymount students to voice their thoughts and opinions on the merger through town halls and student government.

MMC and Northeastern leaders held two town halls in early October, the student-run newspaper of Marymount Manhattan College, The Monitor, previously reported. During the conversation with LeBesco, Henderson said there are plans for more town halls in the future.

“Moving forward, we want to engage as much as possible to ensure that the transition is as smooth as possible and is a win-win for everybody involved,” he said.

Henderson also discussed how Northeastern will work to create a campus that embodies the uniqueness of New York City and allows students to learn within the context of their location — something he says the university has done with its other campuses.

“We’ve actually got this rich tapestry of different locations that we are working with which are powered by what is different, special, unique in that location,” Henderson said. 

In his statement announcing the merger, Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun emphasized New York City’s status as a “financial and media capital” and its “fast-growing technology sector, including significant players such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft.”

While Henderson added that the two institutions saw a “real alignment of values,” some Marymount students have expressed concern that the two schools don’t share MMC’s emphasis on the performing arts.

“I don’t think Northeastern has that same connection with the arts,” then fourth-year acting major at MMC Abby Mulligan told The News when the merger was first made public. 

Affiliates of Mills College have raised similar critiques in the wake of Northeastern’s merger with the Oakland institution. Iris Kingery, a class of 2023 Mills alum, told The Chronicle of Higher Education that after Northeastern merger, “Piece by piece, [the college] was stripped of all those things that made it Mills.”

But during the October conversation, Henderson continued to reiterate the alignment between Northeastern and Marymount, discussing both institutions’ commitment to creativity in entrepreneurship and innovation.

“That again is a very easy fit, there’s not really a stretch to go into that space,” he said. “There’s certainly an open arms embrace that this just makes absolute perfect sense for the institution moving forward.”

Henderson said current Marymount students will have access to Northeastern’s global network of campuses, mobility programs and co-ops after the merger. Incoming Class of 2029 Northeastern students will have the opportunity to be admitted into a new Northeastern program, New York City Scholars, where a cohort of enrolled students will live in New York City their first year before moving to Northeastern’s Boston campus in their second year.

LeBesco ended the conversation with a question about what the merger means for alumni. Henderson said that Marymount Manhattan graduates will have access to Northeastern’s global network of alumni.

“Post-merger, there will be one alumni organization,” Henderson said. “The thing we would love to see is the integration of Marymount alumni.”