In its latest list of America’s top overall colleges, Forbes.com ranked Northeastern 411, one spot behind the University of Kentucky and one ahead of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Four-year graduation rates are one factor in determining a school’s position on the list, but Northeastern is traditionally a five-year school. In the latest ranking, the university’s four-year graduation rate is zero percent.
There’s a blueish glow coming from the ground-floor windows of West Village F. Inside it looks like the Jetsons’ living room. Or maybe the waiting area for a Disney roller coaster. It could be a new model for the Apple store. But in reality, it’s Northeastern’s new visitor center, which moved from the Behrakis Health Sciences Center in the second week of July.
Christina Gilmartin, founder of Northeastern’s Asian Studies Program and an internationally renowned scholar of 20th-century Chinese history, died July 12 from breast cancer.
A 2008 Northeastern graduate accused of planning a terrorist attack on the US Capitol and the Pentagon has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges, according to an agreement filed in court Tuesday. Rezwan Ferdaus, who holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Northeastern, allegedly planned to fly remote-controlled aircraft packed with explosives into the Capitol and Pentagon. According to the filing, prosecutors and the lawyers for Ferdaus have agreed that he should serve 17 years in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release.
The Marino Center was evacuated for more than an hour Friday morning after a small fire broke out in an underground transformer behind the building, according to fire officials. Shortly before 11 a.m., firefighters were called to the corner of Forsyth Street and Speare Place, where an NStar employee working in a manhole had sprayed a chemical on the transformer. There were no injuries reported.
The debate over whether members of the Student Government Association’s (SGA) executive board should be paid will extend into the fall after a university administrator last month overturned a decision to cut stipends from the association’s budget. The Finance Board slashed SGA’s budget in March, denying the organization nearly $30,000 in Student Activity Fee (SAF) funds for stipends. But then-President Mike Sabo appealed, and Dr. Laura Wankel, the university’s vice president for student affairs, struck down the original funding decision last month.
A group of university-contracted janitors, union supporters and community members gathered on campus June 22 to show their support for workers’ rights as thousands in the city prepare to negotiate new contracts. The union, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 615, represents 18,000 property service workers in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, according to its website. In a statement released prior to the rally, SEIU Local 615 officials argued that the rate of pay for contracted workers did not improve in step with tuition increases at Northeastern.
Nadine Aubry, a former engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Penn., will take over as dean of Northeastern’s College of Engineering this fall. Northeastern announced her hiring last week in a statement on its website. Aubry previously headed Carnegie Mellon’s mechanical engineering department.
Fern Flaman, a hockey Hall of Famer and the longest tenured Northeastern men’s hockey head coach, died Friday night. He was 85. As head coach of the Huskies between 1970 and 1989, Mr. Flaman amassed a record of 255–301–23 and brought four Beanpot championships to Huntington Avenue.
The cycling accident that killed 28-year-old Kelsey Rennebohm earlier this month has prompted city officials to intervene on a notoriously hazardous and oft-maligned stretch of Huntington Avenue. In the last week, the city has rolled out improvements at the intersection of Huntington Avenue and Forsyth Street, which Mayor Thomas M. Menino vowed to take a serious look at following the accident.
