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Voices Archive

Take your time to listen to the wonderful Voices of Northeastern. You may also browse the archives by decade.

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President Joseph E. Aoun
On Northeastern as a leader in experiential education: “Co-op is a statement about how people learn. We are saying in order to learn, you need to integrate study and practice. That’s a very different approach from the approaches you see in many other universities, or most universities. And that’s our signature…" >> Hear his voice

Louis H. Barnett, B’44, H’77
On the classroom atmosphere in the 1940s: “We took our English classes across the street, where there were two ballrooms on Huntington Avenue. All the big-name orchestras used to be heard, so we would take our English classes with our feet bouncing. It was the old Benny Goodman…” >> Hear his voice

Nobuko Saito Cleary, LA'70
On adapting to student life: “Most of the students that I saw at Northeastern University were very independent and self-supporting…Very basic things that everyone else seemed to be doing so easily were complex for me. I had to struggle.” >> Hear her voice

Joseph D. Feaster, LA’72, L’75
On becoming a member of the Frank Palmer Speare Society: “I would say it’s not the amount that you give, it’s the consistent giving and if we can expand the number of persons who give, that helps the base entirely.” >> Hear his voice

Neal F. Finnegan, BA’61, H’98
On the Northeastern experience in the 1950s when it was primarily engineering and business students: “My favorite starting point in terms of understanding Northeastern is that it’s been what its students, what its constituents, needed it to be at the time.” >> Hear his voice

Edward G. Galante, E'73
On his co-op experience at Exxon-Mobil: “When I went to Exxon as a co-op, they didn’t give you a diversity of experience as much as they gave you a lot of responsibility, just as if I was a new engineer hired. As I learned more, they gave me more and more responsibility. My last co-op term, I was running projects for them.” >> Hear his voice

John "Jack" P. Grinold
On the annual Beanpot ice hockey tournament: “It naturally grew from humble, humble origins right here at the arena. The house has been packed since the early Sixties. Automatically sells out. It’s part of our lore in the city …”>> Hear his voice

Patricia (Taylor) Hanna, UC’74, H’98
On working and attending college in a male-dominated environment: “I think it was the background of the family I grew up in, where women had a place and a voice. I came from a family of all daughters and by that circumstance we were really my father’s sons.” >> Hear her voice

Carl R. Hurtig, E’48, H’74
On his work after college graduation: “So there I was at graduation and I said, ‘Well what can I do now?’ They had started a new laboratory at Northeastern—I don’t know what the proper name is, probably the products research laboratory. So I said, ‘Fine, I’ll stay here. I’ll work and I’ll see what I can find out.’” >> Hear his voice

Garrett J. Lee, AS’93, L’97
On his undergraduate experience and being a “Double Husky”: “I had some really great professors who challenged me. The University also provided some great opportunities for undergraduate students. Overall, I think I was pretty happy with the way academic life worked at Northeastern at the time.” >> Hear his voice

George P. Makris , BA’48
On being the first athletic director of development for Northeastern: “One day I got a call from Northeastern asking me to come in for a telethon. So I came in. And I was having so much fun on the phone that they were interested in hiring me.” >> Hear his voice

Dennis J. Picard, LI’59, UC’62, H’89
On the engineering classroom in the 1950s: "I was actually amazed at the quality of the instructors. Most of them came from industry, they were part-time instructors. I was a part-time student. They were very pragmatic in general." >> Hear his voice

Robert W. Smith, E'37, LI'47
On what the University was like in the 1930s: “It was a lot different than today, I’ll say that. We had one building that we called the lab building. That’s where we did all of our mechanical and electrical and chemical studies, plus some classrooms. It was three stories I think. That was behind the YMCA building.” >> Hear his voice

James R. Turner, Jr., LA’71
On the university environment during his student years and the evolution of the physical campus: “Because it was a commuter school, Northeastern appeared, at the time I arrived, to not have as much activity as I would’ve expected on a college campus… ”
>> Hear his voice

Lucille R. Zanghi, LA’72
On why she chose to attend Northeastern: “It’s one of those crazy stories. I was studying history in high school. I was really in love with history and had done advanced placement and knew that’s what I wanted to study.” >> Hear her voice