Northeastern University

Northeastern University (NU), is a private, secular, coeducational research university in Boston, Massachusetts. Northeastern has eight colleges and offers undergraduate majors in 65 departments. At the graduate level, the university offers more than 125 programs and awards master's, doctoral, and professional degrees.

Founded in 1898, the university is the home of more than 35 specialized research and education centers. Its main campus is located in the Fenway Cultural District of Boston. Northeastern is classified as a RU/H institution (high research activity) by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Among Northeastern's past and present faculty are several Guggenheim Fellows and a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Award" winner, a former Democratic nominee for President of the United States, and a Pulitzer Prize winner.

In 2012, Northeastern received 44,208 applications for the 2,800 seats of the fall freshman class. 32% of that year's applicants were accepted. Northeastern's cooperative education (co-op) program was one of the first of its kind in the world, with many corporate and non-profit co-op partners both in the United States and abroad. Employers have included major newspapers, popular television shows, international law firms, banks, government offices, and corporations and many Fortune 500 companies.

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, up 6 spots from 2012.

Presidents
Presidents of Northeastern (with years of tenure and campus buildings named in their honor):
 * Frank Palmer Speare (1898–1940, Speare Hall residence hall)
 * Carl Stephens Ell (1940–1959, Ell Hall and the former Ell Student Center, now the Curry Student Center)
 * Asa S. Knowles (1959–1975, Knowles Hall law school building)
 * Kenneth G. Ryder (1975–1989, Ryder Hall arts and humanities classroom building)
 * John A. Curry (1989–1996, Curry Student Center)
 * Richard M. Freeland (1996–2006)
 * Joseph Aoun (2006 – present)

Satellite campuses
The university plans a number of remote campuses in several cities in the United States. The first campus, in Charlotte, North Carolina. opened in October, 2011; a Seattle campus is planned for 2012, and Silicon Valley (California), Austin, Texas, and Minneapolis for future years.

Admissions
Northeastern ranks as the top private American university in the number of applications it receives annually. Barrons College Guides rates admission to Northeastern University as "highly competitive". U.S. News and World Report rates Northeastern as "more selective." The middle 50% of admitted students for Fall 2011 had weighted GPA's of 3.7 - 4.2, SAT scores of 1890–2140 and ACT scores of 29 - 32.

A report by The Huntington News, NU's newspaper, claimed that for the 114th entering class, Northeastern University received 42,948 applications from prospective freshmen for the fall term. This represented a 15% surge from last year's record of 38,000 applications. For this particular year, Northeastern University beat Boston University and New York University in terms of "the most applied-to private university in the United States".

For the same year, the admissions rate dropped to a record-low 34.3%. Approximately 3,000 students enrolled, one-sixth of them  international students.

Academics
Northeastern offers undergraduate majors in 65 departments. At the graduate level, there are more than 125 programs. Academics at Northeastern is grounded in the integration of  classroom studies with experiential learning opportunities, including cooperative education, student research, service learning, and global experience. The university's cooperative education program places about 5,000 students annually with more than 2,500 co-op employers in Boston, across the United States, and around the globe. In 2010, College Prowler gave Northeastern an "A-" rating for the quality of classes, professors, and overall academic environment.

Colleges and schools
Colleges listed including schools and degrees offered:


 * College of Arts, Media and Design (BA, BFA, BS, MS, MA, MPA, Ph.D.)
 * School of Architecture
 * School of Journalism
 * D’Amore-McKim School of Business (BSBA, BSIB, MBA, MS)
 * School of Technological Entrepreneurship (MS)
 * College of Computer Information and Science
 * College of Engineering (BS, MS, Ph.D)
 * Bouvé College of Health Sciences (BS, MS, Pharm.D, Ph.D)
 * The School of Nursing (BS, MS, MPH, DPT, Au.D)
 * The School of Pharmacy (Pharm.D, MS, Ph.D)
 * College of Professional Studies (AS, BA, BS, MA, MS, M.Ed, Ed.D., LP.D.)
 * School of Education
 * English Language Center
 * Lowell Institute School
 * World Languages Center
 * College of Science
 * College of Social Science and Humanities
 * School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (BS, MS, Ph.D.)
 * School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs
 * Department of Law and Public Policy (MS, Ph.D.)
 * School of Law (J.D.)

Honors Program
The University Honors Program offers selected students an enhanced curriculum. Starting with the First Year Reading Project and moving on to participating in a wide range of courses during the undergraduate years, the program gives students a variety of academic choices. The culminating experience is advanced specialty work in a major field through college-specific choices including specialized advanced honors seminars and an independent research project. In addition, students in the Honors Program exclusively can live in a Living-Learning Community housed in West Villages C and F. Since Fall 2009, first-year Honors students are housed in the North and West Towers of the newly constructed International Village residence hall.

Senior Capstone
The Senior Capstone is an advanced level course related to the student's major. The course requires the student to integrate what they have learned through their academic coursework and their experiential learning experience (co-op, research, study abroad, and service).

Pre-med program
The university recently partnered with Tufts University School of Medicine to create an early acceptance BA/MD Program. Northeastern's campus is just a few blocks from the Longwood Medical and Academic Area where Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Dental Medicine are located along with their associated world class teaching hospitals. These institutions provide NU pre-med students with significant internship opportunities. Boston is also home to a burgeoning biotechnology industry

Study abroad
Northeastern has semester-long study abroad programs with placements in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America. Some participating schools include: University of Edinburgh, Scotland; Reims Management School, France; University of Cape Town, South Africa; University of Cambridge and London School of Economics, England; University of Auckland, New Zealand; Swinburne University of Technology, Australia; Obirin University, Japan; American College of Thessaloniki, Greece and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile and also Antarctica

Northeastern's International Business program is a member of the International Partnership of Business Schools. Through this program International Business students have the opportunity to be awarded a dual-degree from Northeastern as well as from a sister school in Europe, Mexico or Hong Kong.

Northeastern also has the notable Dialogues of Civilizations program, which features dozens of one month-long programs (usually taking place in the summer) where a faculty member will lead a group of students in the country of their choice. A sort of "mini" study abroad, each program has an area of focus - for example, the Geneva program focuses on small arms and multilateral negotiations while the South Africa program is based in non-governmental organizations. This program is meant to be a communicative experience and an exchange of ideas and cultures. It is open to all majors and all years, and is the most popular study abroad option at Northeastern.

Since the arrival of President Aoun in 2006, the school has also been emphasizing co-op abroad, in an effort to make the school more global and internationally engaged. There are many programs being offered including social entrepreneurship in the Dominican Republic, Belize, and South Africa.

Northeastern also offers a program called NUin for first-year students who choose to spend their first semester studying abroad. In 2012, 500 students enrolled in the NUin program in destinations of England, Ireland, Greece, Australia, and Costa Rica.

Research
Research Centers and Institutes at Northeastern include:


 * Advanced Scientific Computation Center
 * Anti–microbial Discovery Center
 * Barnett Institute of Chemical and Biological Analysis
 * Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems
 * Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict
 * Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing
 * Center for Communications and Digital Signal Processing
 * Center for Community Health
 * Center for Family Business
 * Center for Microcontamination Control
 * Center for Microwave Magnetic Materials and Integrated Circuits
 * Center for Labor Market Studies
 * Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and Nanomedicine
 * Center for Urban Environmental Studies
 * Center for Urban and Regional Policy
 * Center for Work and Learning
 * Domestic Violence Institute
 * Electronic Materials Research Institute
 * Institute for Complex Scientific Software
 * Institute for Global Innovation Management
 * Institute for Information Assurance
 * Institute for Security and Public Policy in Criminal Justice
 * Institute on Race and Justice
 * Institute on Urban Health Research
 * Marine Science Center
 * National Education and Research Center for Outcomes Assessment in Healthcare
 * New England Inflammation and Tissue Protection Institute
 * Public Health Advocacy Institute
 * Sport in Society (previously the Center for the Study of Sport in Society)
 * STEM Education Center

The university provides undergraduate students with an opportunity to engage in research through the Center for Experiential Education, CenSSIS Research Experience for Undergraduates, Honors Research, Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program, and Provost's Office research grants. In FY 2007, annual external research funding exceeded $78 million. In FY 2009-2010, the research funding is close to $82 million. In 2002, Northeastern's Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems was designated an NSF Engineering Research Center. In 2004, Northeastern was one of six institutions selected by the National Science Foundation as a center for research in nanotechnology. In 2010, Northeastern was granted $12 million by an alum for a Homeland security research facility, to be named the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security, after its chief benefactor.

Faculty
Many of Northeastern's 973 full-time and part-time faculty members have garnered national and international acclaim for their achievements in teaching and research, with particular strength in interdisciplinary scholarship. Northeastern faculty members direct more than 35 research and education centers, including a National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center, an NSF Nanomanufacturing Center, and two NSF Integrated Graduate Education and Research Traineeship programs.

Co-op/internship program
Northeastern has one of the largest co-op/internship programs in the world. Started in 1909, NU's co-op program is one of the oldest in the nation. In the co-op program, students alternate periods of academic study with periods of paid professional employment related to their major. Most majors offer a four-year graduation option with fewer co-op placements, but the five-year program is more popular with students. The co-op program typically starts sophomore year (after a traditional freshman year).

Co-op placements range from small dynamic start-up companies to large multinational companies with thousands of employees, including many Fortune 500 corporations. The program also places students with government agencies, branches of government, nonprofits, and non-governmental organizations. Northeastern students can be found interning in the United States Congress, the White House, United Nations, and at NASA. Student placements usually last six months, and are mostly paid. Students may live in the university residence halls on campus during co-op employment, and the university currently leases housing for students co-oping in New York City and Washington, D.C. and assists elsewhere. Northeastern University is also a partner with the Boston Youth Fund, which is run by the Boston Youth council and provides summer job and enrichment placement for the City of Boston.

Accreditation
Northeastern University is accredited by New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC)

Student activities
Northeastern has over 19 varsity teams in the NCAA, over 30 club sport teams, and over 200 student organizations. Several prominent student-run organizations, including the Resident Student Association (RSA), Student Government Association (SGA), Northeastern University Television (NUTV), Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL), and the Council for University Programs (CUP) organize activities for Northeastern students as well as the surrounding community.

Athletics
Fourteen of eighteen Northeastern varsity sports teams have been competing in NCAA Division I's Colonial Athletic Association, since 2005.

The school sponsors the following sports teams:
 * (M) Baseball
 * (M), (W) Basketball
 * (M), (W) Cross Country
 * (W) Field Hockey
 * (M), (W) Hockey (in Hockey East)
 * (M), (W) Rowing (in Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges and Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges)
 * (M), (W) Soccer
 * (W) Swimming & Diving
 * (M), (W) Track and Field
 * (W) Volleyball

The NU mascot is Paws. The school colors are red and black with white trim. The fight song, "All Hail, Northeastern", was composed by Charles A. Pethybridge, Class of 1932.

Some notable athletes have played for Northeastern's sports teams. Dan Ross played football at Northeastern long before setting the Super Bowl record for receptions in a game. Reggie Lewis still holds the men's basketball career scoring record. Carlos Peña was named Major League Baseball's American League Comeback Player of the Year in 2007 and an AL Gold Glove winner in 2008. The U.S. Olympic women's ice hockey teams have included Northeastern alumni Shelley Looney and Chanda Gunn.

The baseball team has competed in one College World Series and played in the NCAA regionals seven times.

In its first year in the CAA, the men's basketball team finished in 6th place (out of 12 teams) and advanced to the semifinals of the conference tournament. The CAA proved to be a competitive conference in the 2006 NCAA Basketball Tournament, as George Mason University advanced all the way to the Final Four. In 2007, its second year in the CAA, the women's track team captured the conference championship, while the volleyball team finished second. The women's basketball team won 10 more games in 2008 than the previous year, the biggest one-year turnaround in the CAA, and advanced to the tournament quarterfinals.

Northeastern's men's and women's hockey teams compete in the Hockey East Conference. During the 2007–08 season, the men's team ranked as high at #7 in the country and held the top spot in the conference before finishing the season in sixth place in Hockey East. Both teams also participate in the annual Beanpot tournament between the four major Boston-area colleges. Northeastern's men's team has won the annual event 4 times in its 54-year history, while the women's team has captured the Beanpot 14 times. During the 2008–2009 season, the men's team ranked as high as 3rd in the nation and held the top spot in Hockey East until the last weekend of the season; the team made the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1994, the Beanpot championship game for the first time since 2004, and goalie Brad Thiessen made the Hobey Hat Trick, only the second Northeastern player to do so.

The Northeastern Crew team consistently ranks as one of the top 10 teams in the nation. In the 2008 National Championship, the team made the Grand Finals and placed fourth behind University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Washington, and University of California, Berkeley, while beating Brown University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University.

Northeastern offers 40 club sports, including judo, rugby, lacrosse, squash, cycling and ultimate frisbee. In 2005 the women's rugby team finished third in the nation in Division II, while in the same year the men's rugby team won the largest annual tournament in the United States. The men's lacrosse team began the 2008 season ranked in the Top 10 nationally. The men's and women's squash team finished the 2008 season ranked in the Top 20 nationally. In the 2008–2009 academic year the Northeastern Club Field Hockey and Women's Basketball teams won their respective National Championships. From 2007 to 2009, the Northeastern Club Baseball team won three straight New England Club Baseball Association championships. On May 25, 2010 the club baseball team defeated Penn State to win the National Club Baseball Association Division II World Series and national championship.

Citing sparse attendance, numerous losing seasons and the expense to renovate Parsons Field to an acceptable standard, the university Board of Trustees voted on November 20, 2009, to end the football program. According to president Joseph Aoun, "Leadership requires that we make these choices. This decision allows us to focus on our existing athletic programs."

Campus


Northeastern is located in Boston's Fenway, Roxbury and Back Bay neighborhoods adjacent to Huntington Avenue near the Museum of Fine Arts and Symphony Hall. The area is also known as the Fenway Cultural District.

Although located in the heart of Boston, the NU campus is still filled with trees, flowers, and grassy quads. Since the late 1990s, Northeastern has been considered a model of design for urban universities and has twice won the "most beautiful new or renovated exterior space" award (presented by the American Institute of Architects) in 2001 and 2004.

Matthews Arena
Opened in 1910 and widely known as the Boston Arena, Matthews Arena is the world's oldest surviving indoor ice hockey arena. Located on the east edge of Northeastern University's campus, it is home to the Northeastern Huskies men's and women's hockey teams, and men's basketball team as well as the Wentworth Institute of Technology's men's hockey team. The arena is named after former Chair of the Board of Trustees George J. Matthews and his wife, the late Hope M. Matthews. The arena is the original home of the NHL Boston Bruins and the WHA New England Whalers (now the NHL Carolina Hurricanes). It was also the secondary home to the NBA Boston Celtics in the 1940s. It has hosted all or part of the America East Conference men's basketball tournament a total of seven times and hosted the 1960 Frozen Four. The arena also served as the original home to the annual Beanpot tournament between Boston's four major college hockey programs.

Marino Recreation Center
The Marino Center features on its first floor an atrium with two cafés and a food market. The second floor includes a student exercise area, a multipurpose room is used for aerobics classes and martial arts clubs. The gymnasium consists of three basketball courts. On the third floor, a state-of-the-art resistance training area and a fully equipped free weight room. A three-lane suspended track is available for either walking or jogging, and rowing ergometers are available.

Library facilities
The NU Libraries include the Snell Library, the John D. O'Bryant African-American Institute Library, and the library at the NU Marine Science Center in Nahant, Massachusetts. The NU School of Law Library is separately administered by the NU School of Law.

Snell Library opened in 1990 at a cost of $35 million and contains 1.3 million volumes. The Digital Media Design Studio within the library is a collaborative and interdisciplinary learning environment for creating course-related multimedia presentations, projects and portfolios. The library is home to the Favat Collection, a current collection of children's literature and K-12 curriculum resources, instructional materials, and related information to support courses offered by the School of Education. It contains three computer labs operated by NU Information Services. Two are available to all NU students, faculty, and staff; the other is a teaching lab. .

The NU Libraries received federal depository designation in 1962. As a selective depository, the Libraries receive forty-five percent of the federal publication series available to depository libraries.

The Snell Library is also home to the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections department, which includes the Benjamin LaGuer papers collection. The Special Collections focus on records of Boston-area community-based organizations that are concerned with social justice issues.

Snell Library is also opened 24 hours a day, allowing students to study at any given time.

Spiritual Life Center and Sacred Space
Within the urban environment that characterizes the campus as a whole, NU has carved out a quiet, peaceful space in the centrally located Ell Building for the Spiritual Life Center's Sacred Space. The nondenominational Sacred Space, the Center's main assembly hall, can be configured with carpets, mats or chairs. It has a distinctive ceiling consisting of 3 hanging domes made of overlapping aluminum tiles with an origami-like effect, warm wood floors and accents, and glass-panelled walls that lean outward slightly, their shape and material giving a sense of openness and volume to the space. Faucets for ablution are available in a flanking antechamber, and the Center also contains a smaller meeting space and library. The Sacred Space opened in 1998. The architects Office dA (Nader Tehrani & Monica Ponce de Leon) received the 2002 Harleston Parker Medal from the Boston Society of Architects for the design.

West Village
The West Village complex includes eight buildings serving mainly as residence halls and classrooms.
 * Building A (opened 1999): Residence Hall (two sections, West Village A North and South).
 * Building B (opened 2001): Residence Hall.
 * Building C (opened 2001): Residence Hall (several floors for upperclassmen honors students) and one classroom.
 * Building D - Behrakis Health Science Center (opened 2002): classrooms and laboratories
 * Building E (opened 2002): Residence Hall.
 * Building G (opened 2004): Residence Hall and several classrooms.
 * Building H (opened 2004): Residence Hall. Open to students who are over the age of 21 . New home of the College of Computer and Information Science (several classrooms, offices and computer labs).
 * Building F (opened 2006): Residence Hall for upper-class honors students, classrooms, John D. O'Bryant African-American Institute, Admissions Visitors Center.

The plans for Building K, a 22-story high rise housing 600 beds, have been suspended indefinitely as a result of the troubled economy.

South Campus (Columbus Avenue)
Northeastern University's southernmost section of campus is located along Columbus Avenue in Roxbury, parallel to the Orange line. The University expanded south into Roxbury at the same time as they were building West Village. In 2001, Davenport Commons was opened, providing 585 students housing in two  residence halls while 75 families representing a range of incomes have been able to purchase a condo or townhouse at or below Boston's market value. Davenport Commons also created commercial space on Tremont Street.

During the summer of 2006, Northeastern University proposed a new residence hall further away from the main campus, at the corner of Tremont Street and Ruggles Street. Construction began in late February 2007. The building opened  in Fall   2009 and has a total of 22 stories. In the Spring of 2009, The complex was named International Village and opened later that Summer. Its nicknames include "IV" and "INV." It consists of three residence halls, an office complex and administration building, and a gym. The residence halls house honors freshman and all levels of upperclassmen. A 400 seat dining hall  available to all members of the Northeastern community as well as the public, along with several fast food locations.

The following buildings make up the South Campus,:

Residential buildings
 * Davenport Commons A - 2000
 * Davenport Commons B - 2000
 * 780 Columbus Avenue - 2001 (converted lofts; formerly South End Auto Supply)
 * 768 Columbus Avenue (faculty/graduate students)
 * 10 Coventry - 2005
 * International Village - 2009

Administrative buildings
 * Columbus Place (716 Columbus Ave) - 1997
 * Renaissance Park (1135 Tremont St)
 * International Village Office Building - 2009

Athletic buildings
 * Badger and Rosen Facility (Squashbusters) - 2003

Dodge Hall
Dodge Hall is mainly used for Northeastern's business programs (Before Snell Library opened in 1990, it served as the university's main library). Dodge Hall has five floors. The basement houses a computer lab and is connected to the university's large network of underground tunnels which connects many buildings.

Classrooms and a lounge area occupy the first floor. The D'Amore-McKin School of Business undergraduate office is on the second floor, and the graduate office is on the third floor. The School of Professional Accounting office is on the fourth floor.

Sustainability
In order to reduce the campus’ environmental impact, Northeastern has formed a Sustainability Committee that meets several times a year to create proposals to the President's Office. The 22-story residence Hall (International Village) will be the campus’ second LEED certified building, with the renovation of Dockser Hall the first building on campus to achieve LEED certification. The Clean Plates initiative, which encourages students to separate their leftover food in dining halls, has allowed dining services to compost seven to eight tons per week. Consequently, initiatives, the University was awarded an overall grade of "B" on the Sustainable Endowments Institute's College Sustainability Report Card 2009. In addition, in 2010 the Princeton Review rated Northeastern as one of the top 15 "Green Colleges" in the nation. In 2011, the GreenMetric World University ranking put Northeastern as the second greenest university in the world, and first in the US.

Public safety
The University Police Department is a full service law enforcement agency with full powers of arrest on university property or property used by Northeastern students and faculty. The campus is adjacent to the Boston Police Department's Headquarters. A 2008 Reader's Digest survey ranked NU as the second safest school in the United States after Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.

Public transportation
Northeastern is bracketed by the MBTA's Orange Line and Green Line "E" Branch. Six stations serve the campus: Massachusetts Avenue and Ruggles on the Orange Line; and Symphony, Northeastern, Museum of Fine Arts, and Longwood Medical Area on the Green Line. The Green Line is paralleled by the #39 bus. Ruggles also serves several of the southside lines of the MBTA Commuter Rail system.

Campus development background
Northeastern's campus is mostly located along Huntington Avenue in an area known as the "Fenway Cultural District" which is part of Boston's Fenway and Back Bay neighborhoods. Other notable institutions in the district include: the Museum of Fine Arts, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Symphony Hall, the Huntington Theater, New England Conservatory, Boston Conservatory, Berklee College of Music, Christian Science Center, Mary Baker Eddy Library and Harvard School of Public Health.

Northeastern's campus is something of an urban oddity; despite its location in central Boston, Northeastern is home to a remarkable amount of green open space and quads.

A site master planning competition awarded a  contract to revive and rejuvenate the campus; the process was started in 1988 with the creation of the new Northeastern Quad and Mt Ryder. A small oval of land centrally located at the campus main entrance was refurbished by the donations of the graduating class of 1989.

What was once a concrete square, outside of the library and student center, was transformed with brick pavers and granite curb stones, in a scalloped design that would eliminate all square corners, a concept developed by the outgoing class of 1989 in a "Northeastern News" poll and suggestion to the President Box that was presented to the board of Trustees in March 1988. The "No Corners" campaign kicked off with a fund raiser at the Ell Student Center on Parents weekend in October 1988. The later selection of a nationally recognized green space landscape architect in 1990 started a renewal plan that continues today. Since the late 1990s Northeastern has twice won the "most beautiful new or renovated exterior space" award presented by the American Institute of Architects in 2001 and again in 2004. In 2008, West Village Building F was recognized in American Institute of Architects New England 2008 Merit Awards for Design Excellence.

In 2003, Northeastern was awarded the prestigious gold medal by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for its Dedham Campus.

Rankings
Northeastern is one of the fastest rising schools in the U.S. News rankings. Since 2001, Northeastern has moved up 94 spots in the rankings. In the 2013 edition, US News and World Report rated Northeastern 56th in the Top National Universities category, ranking the university as a Tier 1 National Research University.

Additional Northeastern rankings include:
 * 1st for Best Co-ops/Internships (US News and World Report) (2003, only time this characteristic was ranked)
 * Also in 2003, Northeastern's career services department was awarded top honors by Kaplan Newsweek's "Unofficial Insiders Guide to the 320 Most Interesting Colleges and Universities."
 * 1st for "Best Internships/Career Services" (Princeton Review) (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013)
 * 2nd on the list of "Up-and-coming National Universities" US News and World Report (2010 and 2011)
 * 4th by the Boston Business Journal in terms of the number of graduates who are current CEOs of Massachusetts Companies behind Harvard, MIT, and Boston College (Boston Business Journal Book of Lists 2010)
 * 4th as one of "America's Most Entrepreneurial Campuses" (Forbes)
 * Northeastern is also listed among 25 "Cutting-Edge Schools" in the 2008 edition of "You Are Here," a college guide by Kaplan Publishing.
 * 12th in Criminology (graduate) US News (2009)
 * 12th on the list of "Top Entrepreneurial Programs" by the Princeton Review (2011)
 * 13th on the list of "Best Graduate Schools 2009" for Computer Science, Programming Languages specialty (US News) (2008)
 * 13th on the list of "Great College Towns" by the Princeton Review (2011)
 * 14th in Architecture by the Key Institute (2009)
 * 19th on the list of the "Most Desirable Large Schools" by Newsweek (2011)
 * 39th in Pharmacy by (US News and World Report)(2012).
 * 47th by guidance counselors in the Top National Universities category (US News and World Report) (2010).
 * 61st on the list of "Best Computer Science Graduate Schools" (US News and World Report) (2009)
 * Northeastern University College of Computer and Information Science - named as one of the top 10 innovative "IT Schools to Watch" by Computerworld magazine (2008)

Northeastern University College of Engineering D’Amore-McKim School of Business (undergraduate program)
 * 56th on the list of "Best Engineering Undergraduate Schools" (US News and World Report)(2010)
 * 64th on the list of "Best Engineering Graduate Schools" (US News and World Report) (2011)


 * 1st in internships according to (Business Week) (2007)
 * 13th for international business (US News) (2007)
 * 4th in the U.S. in entrepreneurship (Entrepreneur magazine and The Princeton Review) (2009)
 * 27th in the nation (Business Week)(2012)
 * In addition, Northeastern CBA students have dominated case competitions against other Boston area business schools winning 10 of the last 13 Business School Beanpot competitions.

Graduate School of Business Administration
 * 56th on the list of "Best Business Graduate Schools" (US News and World Report) (2013)
 * 56th on the list of "Best Business Graduate Schools" (US News and World Report) (2012)
 * 86th on "Financial Times Global MBA Ranking 2012"
 * 51st in Full Time MBA, Top Tier B-School, (Business Week) (2012)
 * 62nd on the list of "Best Business Graduate Schools" (US News and World Report) (2011)


 * Executive MBA program ranked in the top 50 in the nation by the Financial Times
 * 1st in High Technology (MBA program) -"Top Techno MBA Survey" released by ComputerWorld Magazine.

School of Law
 * 1st in public interest law by the American Bar Association. The law school was also ranked first in the same category by the National Jurist and preLaw Magazine.
 * 71st - Top Graduate School of Law (US News and World Report) (2011)

Awards and recognition

 * In 2002, the Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems was designated an Engineering Research Center by the National Science Foundation.
 * Since 2002, Northeastern has received three major awards for design excellence including the 2005 Harleston Parker Medal from the Boston Society of Architects.
 * In 2004, Northeastern was one of six institutions to be selected by the National Science Foundation as an engineering research center in nanotechnology.
 * In 2008, Northeastern's College of Computer and Information Science and was selected as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research by The National Security Agency and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
 * In 2009, a team of NU College of Computer and Information Science students won the 2009 Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition.
 * In 2009, a team of NU undergraduate business students took first place in the B-School Beanpot case competition (the school's 10th win out of the last 13 competitions).
 * In 2009, a team of NU undergraduate business students took first place in the Stockholm School of Economics International Case Competition.
 * In 2009, a team of NU undergraduate engineering students took first place in the Chem-e-car competition.
 * In 2010, a team of NU students took first place in both the 2010 Northeast Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition and the 2010 National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition

Commencement speakers
Over the years, several notable individuals have spoken at commencement:


 * Leverett A. Saltonstall- Governor of Massachusetts (1935)
 * Godfrey Lowell Cabot - American industrialist (1941)
 * Channing Pollock- American playwright (1942)
 * Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. - American statesman and noted historian (1943)
 * Igor Sikorsky - Ukrainian-American pioneer of aviation (1944)
 * Charles Sinclair Weeks - United States Secretary of Commerce (1948)
 * John F. Kennedy - U.S. Senator, future President of the United States (1956)
 * Edward M. Kennedy - U.S. Senator (1965,1977)
 * Coretta Scott King - Wife of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1971)
 * Edward J. King - Governor of Massachusetts (1980)
 * Jesse Jackson (1978)
 * Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. - Assistant to President John F. Kennedy (1981)
 * Tip O'Neill - Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (1982)
 * Michael S. Dukakis - Governor of Massachusetts, 1988 presidential Candidate (1984)
 * Bill Clinton - President of the United States (1993)
 * Mikhail S. Gorbachev - former President of the Soviet Union (1998)
 * Madeleine Albright - first woman United States Secretary of State (2000)
 * Bill Richardson - former U.S. Secretary of Energy, Governor of New Mexico (2001)
 * Christine Todd Whitman - Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (2003)
 * Jeffrey Immelt - CEO of General Electric, the second largest global company (2006)
 * Nicholas Negroponte - Founder of the One Laptop Per Child outreach program (2007)
 * Christopher Cox - Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman (2008)
 * Stephen Breyer - United States Supreme Court Justice (2008 - Law)
 * Kenneth Cole - Founder of Kenneth Cole Productions (2009)
 * Kenneth Chenault - CEO and chairman of American Express (2010)
 * Henri A. Termeer - former CEO and chairman of Genzyme Corporation (2011)
 * Colin Powell - former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (2012)