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.
Shelli Jankowski-Smith, the director of spiritual life at Northeastern, announced in an email Wednesday that she is stepping down from her position at the end of the month. In the announcement of her resignation, Jankowski-Smith said the Spiritual Life Center will be renamed the Center for Spirituality, Intergroup Dialogue and Service.
As Northeastern’s entrepreneurship program rises in national rankings, an upstart student group dedicated to the cultivation of business ideas is helping to lead the way. The Princeton Review ranked Northeastern the nation’s ninth best college for undergraduate entrepreneurship last fall. IDEA, a student-run and operated organization, is a key asset to that program. It provides students, faculty and alumni with resources to design and develop their own business ventures.
The MBTA detailed plans earlier this month of how it will improve the Route 39 bus, a key connector of Mission Hill and the Northeastern campus and a staple of many students’ daily routines. The proposal is part of the authority’s broader Key Bus Route Improvement Program, and calls for reduced stops, added bus shelters and more reliable service, according to a slideshow posted on the MBTA’s website.
The man charged with murder for the 2008 shooting of Rebecca Payne, a Northeastern student, was ordered held without bail Monday, the Suffolk district attorney’s office said. Cornell Smith, Payne’s suspected killer, was arraigned on a first-degree murder charge in Suffolk Superior Court, according to the office of Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley.
