Northeastern University - History

History

Northeastern was established in 1898 as the "Evening Institute for Younger Men" at the Huntington Avenue YMCA. Its first class was held October 3, 1898. The institute catered to the needs of the rapidly growing immigrant population in Boston. Within a few years of its formation, it offered classes in law, engineering and finance. In 1909 the school began offering day classes and it moved to a new location on Huntington Avenue in 1913. The school was officially organized as a college in 1916 and in 1922 it was renamed "Northeastern University of the Boston Young Men's Christian Association." In a period of rapid campus expansion, the university purchased the Huntington Avenue Grounds (former Boston Red Sox ballpark) in 1929, but did not build on the land due to financial constraints during The Great Depression.

In 1935, the College of Liberal Arts was added to Northeastern, and the university's name was simplified to "Northeastern University." In 1937 The Northeastern University Corporation was established, creating a board of trustees made up of 31 members of the NU Corporation and 8 members of the YMCA. In 1948 Northeastern separated itself completely from the YMCA.

Following World War II, Northeastern began admitting women, and in the boom of post-war college-bound students, Northeastern created a College of Education (1953), University College (now called the College of Professional Studies) (1960), College of Pharmacy and College of Nursing (1964). The College of Pharmacy and College of Nursing were subsequently combined into the Bouvé College of Health Sciences. Northeastern also added the College of Criminal Justice (1967) and College of Computer Science (1982), since renamed the College of Computer and Information Science.

Similar to a number of urban universities, Northeastern began as a commuter school with many part-time and evening students, and by the early 1980s had grown to 60,000 enrollees. In the 1990s, the university reduced the number of enrolled students in order to become a "smaller, better" university and began building more residence halls on campus. It cut its freshman class size from around 4500 students to 2800 students.

From 1996 to 2006, President Richard Freeland led an institutional change; average SAT scores increased more than 200 points, retention rates rose dramatically, and applications doubled. President Freeland oversaw Northeastern’s largest expansion ever, opening $485 million in new facilities, including residence halls, academic and research facilities, and athletic centers. The institution also became substantially more selective, leading to a more academically talented student body.

During the transition, students experienced a re-organization of the co-operative education system to better integrate classroom learning with workplace experience. The university also switched its full-time undergraduate and graduate programs to a new academic calendar comprising two traditional semesters and two summer "minimesters", replacing the four-quarter system. This new calendar allowed students to delve more deeply into their academic courses and to experience longer, more substantive co-op placements.

Throughout the transformation, President Freeland's oft-repeated goal was to crack the Top 100 of the U.S. News rankings, which was accomplished in 2005. With this goal accomplished and the transformation from commuting school to national research university complete, he stepped down from the presidency on August 15, 2006. His successor is Dr. Joseph Aoun, formerly a dean at University of Southern California. Since coming into office in the fall of 2006, President Aoun has implemented a decentralized management model, giving the academic deans of the university more control over their own budgets, faculty hiring decisions, and fundraising.

As part of Northeastern's five-year, $75 million Academic Investment Plan, the University is concentrating on three areas: undergraduate education, core graduate professional programs, and centers of research excellence. The Plan centers around the addition of 100 tenured and tenure-track professors between 2004 and 2009. This plan was recently expanded to provide for the hiring of an additional 300 tenure and tenure-track faculty in interdisciplinary fields. Aoun has also placed more emphasis on improving town relations by reaching out to leaders of the communities surrounding the university. In addition, Aoun has created more academic partnerships with other institutions in the Boston area including Tufts, Hebrew College and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.

Under Aoun's leadership, the university continues to climb in the rankings. In the 2013 edition of U.S. News and World Report's "Best Colleges Guide", Northeastern increased its ranking to 56th, up 6 spots from 2012.