A conversation with Northeastern’s President Joseph E. Aoun
As commencement season approaches, the university’s president discusses academic achievement and the future of Northeastern.
Commencement is a few weeks away. This includes 37 ceremonies across all of Northeastern’s colleges and campuses. What does commencement mean to you?
It’s the culmination of our work as a community. It’s the time of year when we get to celebrate the achievements of our graduating students, but also the achievements of our faculty and everyone connected to Northeastern. Whether you work in facilities or advancement or you’re on the faculty, everyone contributes to the university’s success.
Commencement also takes on a heightened importance in the current climate. We’re living in a time when people are questioning the value of higher education. We are also facing a demographic cliff at the undergraduate level. Fewer students are applying to college, especially young men. We are experiencing a shifting job market. And there’s also the disruptive impact of AI, which has the potential to be very significant.
Northeastern is extremely well positioned to tackle all of these challenges. Because of co-op, our students have very strong outcomes. Our leadership in experiential learning is our differentiator. I often say that higher education in the United States is diverse but not differentiated. Northeastern is truly differentiated.
On AI, we have been one of the first movers. Our strategic plan, Northeastern 2025, was developed by our community over 10 years ago. We foresaw the implications of AI, and we are continuing to lead as AI becomes more powerful.
What moves should higher education make in the face of all these changes?
I don’t want to speak for other universities, but at Northeastern we have a history of turning adverse circumstances into opportunities. During the Great Recession in 2008, higher education went into retrenchment mode. Faculty hiring froze, investments were put on hold. Presidents were sending out emails saying that it was time to press pause.
We did the opposite. We launched a major faculty initiative, which allowed us to attract and retain exceptional scholars. As the economy worsened, we doubled-down on co-op, which is the ideal educational model for these times.
In essence, we put a laser focus on our mission, and we weren’t timid about it. We developed an academic plan that prioritized our strengths. We made bets on emerging fields. This allowed us to achieve leadership in domains such as network science, wireless technologies, healthy aging, and others.
Do you see a similar dynamic today?
Recessions come and go. The moves we made in 2008-2009 were designed for that particular situation. We are facing a different situation today with AI, which can call into question the fundamental purpose of the university.
I actually think many colleges and universities had the wrong reaction to ChatGPT and other large language models. Higher education’s initial reaction was protectionist. It was about preventing students from cheating. That’s a very limited view. The same thing happened in the mid-90’s when the Internet became widely accessible, and in the 1980s when personal computers became commonplace.
Again, I think we at Northeastern have an edge. AI is a very powerful but at the same time it has limitations. AI doesn’t understand contexts. It doesn’t understand the physical world. This is where experiential learning comes to the fore. Our students live, learn and work in multiple contexts. This teaches cultural agility, teamwork, entrepreneurship, and other uniquely human skills.
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Our humanics curriculum—which often comes to life in the form of combined majors—remains very important. Humanics includes understanding what I call the three literacies: tech literacy, data literacy, and the human literacy. For humans to remain in the driver’s seat, we must really master the human literacy—those qualities that we humans have, but AI does not have for the foreseeable future.
So, I think Northeastern has a special role to play. We have the opportunity to lead in the age of AI. Our next academic plan can position us for a leadership role.
Where does our network of campuses fit in?
Our global university system is one of our greatest strengths. It provides both resilience and opportunity. As political winds shift and change, there is an obvious benefit to having a presence in different regions and countries. This provides resilience. This has been an intentional strategy.
Overall, the global university system does three things for us. It enables mobility for our students, it gives us a global research enterprise, and it dramatically expands our capacity to provide lifelong learning.
Let me take them one by one. The essence of experiential learning is learning in different contexts. Undergraduates can start in London, move to Oakland or New York, and finish in Boston. Each location offers different opportunities and experiences. This kind of mobility is unique in higher education. It will give our students an edge, especially in the age of AI.
In terms of research, the global system is an amplifier of our research enterprise. It allows us to recruit faculty talent in different parts of the world, and it unlocks new funding opportunities. The London campus allows us to apply for funding from the UK government, and our presence in Dublin allows Northeastern faculty to win grants from the EU. In fact, a faculty member in electrical engineering just secured an EU grant to fund research in the emerging field of physical AI.
Third is lifelong learning. A founding premise of the global university system is that, when it comes to lifelong learners, we need to meet them where they are. Mid-career learners don’t have the time to leave their jobs and spend time on a traditional campus. Our model has been to go where the learners are, often partnering with their employers, and giving them opportunities to upskill and reskill themselves.
How do you measure the success of the global university system?
First and foremost, it’s about our mission of education and research. That is why we exist, whether we’re in Boston or Vancouver or London. We can quantify the learners we reach, the programs they complete, the employers we partner with, and new research opportunities we create.
It’s also important to remember that the global university system provides significant resources for the university. A byproduct of our success is the substantial revenue that the global system generates. And remember, when we merge with another institution this is done at no cost to Northeastern. These are not acquisitions or purchases—they are mergers.
And because we are a not-for-profit, everything is reinvested into the mission. This allows us to continue to invest in faculty, in new research facilities and classrooms, you name it.
Do you see other universities emulating this model?
Yes, we’ve had many universities visit with us to learn more about what we’re doing. We’ve seen some of our peers open campuses in US cities and overseas, but they tend to be stand-alone operations.
Our strategy has been different. I use the word “system” on purpose because we are building a network and forging connections across our campuses all the time. I mentioned student mobility and the opportunities for faculty to expand their research across the system. The global university system acts as a system. That is unique in higher education.
Final question. Back to commencement. Can you give us a sneak peek into what you’ll be saying to this year’s graduates?
You’ll have to show up to find out! Or at least watch the livestream. To be honest, I’m still working on my speech. I’m planning to talk about the opportunity that comes with uncertainty. While uncertainty can be unsettling and produce anxiety, a world in motion is also a world of opportunities. Our graduates are ready.
