Almost 800 students were forced out of their housing Tuesday night when power outages fell over Back Bay and left buildings on St. Stephen Street, Hemenway Street and Huntington Avenue without power. The university advised students to find a friend or fellow student in another building to stay with, but offered accommodations in the Cabot Center for displaced students as well.
Although the Student Government Association (SGA) president and executive vice president campaigns kicked off Tuesday, one presidential candidate still hasn’t received enough student signatures to be officially nominated.
After deciding Chick-fil-A would not be an option for Northeastern, officials explored other possible food vendors for the Curry Student Center food court.
The source of the outages, Vice President for Information Services Rehan Khan said, is a device called a core router. This connects the university network to the Internet and distributes Internet traffic throughout the network.
“We are very pleased with the outcome of Monday night’s senate resolution to exclude Chick-fil-A from the group of vendors considered for a soon-to-be-renovated space at Northeastern’s Curry Student Center,” Director of Marketing and Communications Renata Nyul said in a statement Tuesday.
Northeastern’s plans to turn part of the YMCA property on Huntington Avenue into a $75 million 17-story building designed to hold 320 student residences as well as classrooms are not any further along. In an email to The News, Vice President for City and Community Affairs John Tobin said, “There is nothing really new to report. Just that negotiations continue on the financial aspects of the deal.” Construction on the building, which Phoenix Property Company owns and manages, was slated to begin in June of last year so the dorm could open in August of 2013.
As part of the new budget, SGA’s chief of staff and executive director of communications will each receive a $788 stipend increase, bringing the amount from $1,575 to $2,363 a year. The SAF, a fee of $116 per year mandatory for all undergraduate students, funds all SGA stipends. The president’s $4,200 stipend will remain the same. Sabo said the rationale for stipends is that serving on SGA’s executive board is so time consuming that members cannot hold a part-time job.
“The fundamental feature of this program is the students in it and what they accomplish,” D’Agati said. “We have students that won so many awards at the NATO conference that it was the single-best performance of any school this year and last year combined.”
In a Feb. 2 email to students, the Office of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs said several services that utilize the Husky card system would be unavailable, including additions to meal plans, replacing Husky cards and adding funds to the cards. Students will also not be able to use their card for laundry, vending machines, off-campus dining vendors or the Northeastern bookstore, Rebecca’s Café and all dining halls will still accept the cards.
Almost 800 students were forced out of their housing Tuesday night when power outages fell over Back Bay and left buildings on St. Stephen Street, Hemenway Street and Huntington Avenue without power. The university advised students to find a friend or fellow student in another building to stay with, but offered accommodations in the Cabot Center for displaced students as well. 
