Northeastern honored again with national award for diversity and inclusion

For the second consecutive year, Northeastern has received a national honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion. Photo by Adam Glanzman/Northeastern University

For the second consecutive year, Northeastern University has received the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine, the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education. The national honor recognizes U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Northeastern is one of only 80 higher education institutions in the country—and the only college or university in New England—to receive the award this year. The HEED Award application process includes questions related to student and employment recruitment and retention as well as continued leadership support for diversity and other aspects of campus diversity and inclusion.

“Our standards are high, and we look for institutions where diversity and inclusion are woven into the work being accomplished every day across their campus,” Lenore Pearlstein, publisher of INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine, said in a statement.

Northeastern’s commitment to diversity and inclusion spans a wide range of efforts and initiatives, and features a diverse student body, increasingly globalized programs, a focus on recruiting, retaining, and advancing a diverse population of faculty and staff.

The university has launched a website that serves as a primary portal to information about these efforts, and the university’s new academic plan—Northeastern 2025—describes diversity and inclusion as keys to making learners more agile and adaptable to different cultures, intellectual perspectives, and workplace challenges in an era of intelligent machines.

In the past year, the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion started a new professional development training series for faculty and staff on diversity and inclusion.

Since 2006, Northeastern has grown international enrollment by 502 percent and enrollment of students of color by 107 percent. The university provides students myriad programs and resources focused on diversity and building community on campus—from scholarship and leadership programs, to cultural and resource centers such as the John D. O’Bryant African-American Institute, the Latino/a Student Cultural Center, the Asian American Center, the Social Justice Resource Center, the LGBTQA Resource Center, the Disability Resource Center, and the Center for Spirituality, Dialogue, and Service.