College of Arts

Zeke Martin, a music professor in the music department, plays the drums during a live jazz quartet behind 716 Columbus Avenue on Oct. 27, 2020. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

You’re not hearing things, a jazz quartet is jamming live on campus

Northeastern drumming instructor Zeke Martin used to perform in 200 live jazz concerts a year. Then COVID-19 hit, and he’s down to about 25 gigs, some virtual. Undeterred by shuttered jazz clubs, he rounded up his buddies, and they found a way to bring the music to the people. “Man, I just want to play,” he says.

by Peter Ramjug November 1, 2020

Northeastern’s Racial Literacy series takes on Boston’s troubled history

A diverse panel of Northeastern faculty assembled to present a side of the city that visitors might not know from travel reviews—a history of slave-trading, violent opposition to desegregation in public schools, and an historical dearth of leadership roles for people who aren’t white.

by Peter Ramjug September 29, 2020

Will young voters show up to the polls (or the mailbox) for this election?

Ever since 18-year-olds were given the right to vote, turnout among young people has been largely underwhelming. Northeastern graduates Emily White and Melanie Shark are working to change that.

by Peter Ramjug September 4, 2020

A United States Postal worker makes a delivery with gloves and a mask in Warren, Mich., Thursday, April 2, 2020. The U.S. Postal Service is keeping post offices open but ensuring customers stay at least 6 feet (2 meters) apart. The agency said it is following guidance from public health experts, although there is no indication that the new coronavirus COVID-19 is being spread through the mail. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Delivery workers step up during the COVID-19 pandemic

We shouldn’t forget letter carriers and package handlers who remain on the job during a worldwide health crisis to deliver an essential service, says Ryan Ellis, an assistant professor of communications and the author of a new book about the infrastructure challenges the U.S. faced following the terrorist attacks of 2001.

by Joe Halpern - contributor April 9, 2020

Meg Heckman, assistant professor of journalism, and Catherine McGloin, the editor of The Scope, work on a story for the digital magazine. Photo by Ruby Wallau/Northeastern University

This student-run magazine tells the stories other media overlook

The Scope, a digital magazine at Northeastern, produces stories written by students who cover pressing issues in the Greater Boston area, including gentrification, gender inequality in science, and a lack of access to healthy food.

by Irvin Zhang August 16, 2019

Sara Jensen Carr. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

Six epidemics from American history show how urban design affects our health

What does tuberculosis have to do with your neighborhood park? What does cholera have to do with city grids? Sara Jensen Carr, an assistant professor of architecture at Northeastern, reveals how epidemics, chronic illnesses, and “social diseases” shape the places where Americans live.

by Emily Arntsen August 8, 2019

Dan Adams poses for a photo in Boston’s Ink Block neighborhood. Photo by Adam Glanzman/Northeastern University

This architect looked at an abandoned, littered parking lot under a highway and saw something beautiful

Dan Adams, who directs Northeastern’s School of Architecture, had to meet a lot of competing goals to reimagine a deserted plot of land in Boston’s Ink Block Neighborhood, and he pulled it off. The final product won a top honor from the American Institute of Architects.

by Molly Callahan February 8, 2019

What made Bird Box so popular?

The answer, says Yakov Bart, an associate professor of marketing at Northeastern, is in the memes.

by Molly Callahan January 2, 2019

Assistant Professor Pedro Cruz recently won two awards at the Kantar ‘Information is Beautiful’
Awards. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

The United States isn’t quite a melting pot, this data visualization artist says. It’s more like a tree.

Pedro Cruz thinks of the United States as a tree. Specifically, as a tree trunk, with its concentric rings demarking growth throughout the years. As the Northeastern professor imagines it, each ring, instead of being formed by the birth and death of new plant cells, is formed by the flow of new immigrants arriving to the country.

by Molly Callahan December 12, 2018

Lessons from the pineapple under the sea

Stephen Hillenburg, who created SpongeBob SquarePants, died this week at 57 years old. But the underwater world he constructed is more than just a Nickelodeon cartoon about a business-casual sea sponge and his aquatic friends; it’s “a guide for growing up,” said Jason Donati a visiting associate teaching professor at Northeastern.

by Molly Callahan November 28, 2018