May 2003			Deal Breakers Throwing Sand in the Machine Watching the Detectives	E Line Sports Q&A Books Alumni Passages Classes From the Field First-Person Letters Huskiana
		Freeeland airs plan for labor-market problem President Freeland issued a labor-market call to arms this spring: He challenged universities to become more attuned to America’s workforce needs, and urged government to consider innovative solutions to workforce shortages. Freeland aired his views before a New England Board of Higher Education symposium on “defining higher-education policy imperatives for New England’s governors,” held in early March at Boston’s Fairmont Copley Place Hotel. “New England is confronted with a workforce challenge that is severe, complex, structural, and long-term,” he said. “Unless we are proactive in addressing our workforce issues, we risk becoming an economic backwater.” Freeland urged three priorities: • Develop a regional strategy for dealing with young people who are both out of work and out of school—numbered at 180,000 in New England, according to 2001 estimates. This strategy must include more job-training programs, he said. • Address the “mismatch” between the academic fields in which students enroll and the region’s actual workforce needs. He urged universities to move to targeted scholarship aid, heavier recruitment of underrepresented groups, and continuing education for those studying to be health-care professionals; certified math and science teachers; or science, engineering, and information-technology professionals. In the case of teachers, Freeland suggested that governments look at differentiated compensation to steer college graduates into academic fields that face critical shortages. “Indeed,” he lamented, “the gym teacher and the chemistry teacher are essentially paid the same.” • Consider immigration a critical factor in filling the gaps. “It is virtually impossible,” Freeland said, “to conceive of a thriving New England economy without continued immigration.” In a panel discussion following the remarks, former New Hampshire governor Jeanne Shaheen praised Freeland for doing “a very good job of laying out the challenges.” Freeland’s idea for tying immigration policy to labor needs, Shaheen said, “is an excellent one.” Pharmacy grads shine on licensing exam The only problem with the 100 percent pass rate achieved by Northeastern pharmacy grads on their licensing exams is what to do for an encore, according to pharmacy dean Daniel Robinson. But that’s a happy problem. This year, for the first time in the history of the Pharmacy school, all the graduating students who took the two-day licensing exam passed, Robinson said. “This is a wonderful achievement for us,” he said. “We have very high-quality students.” The national pass-rate average in 2002 was 93.7 percent, said Robinson. Northeastern’s success comes after a two-year effort to boost the pass rate with curriculum changes and stepped-up test preparation. “There was a major effort to prepare students to pass the licensing exam through review courses,” said pharmacy practice chair Jack Reynolds. “And our students are very focused and driven.” Angela Davis takes on racial profiling Angela Davis calls racial profiling “affirmative action in reverse” and criticizes law-enforcement officials’ tendency to eye African Americans as potential criminals—a problem, she says, that dates back to the abolition of slavery. But the former Black Panther and Communist Party affiliate is also optimistic that such problems can be solved. Davis spoke in March to a capacity crowd in Blackman Auditorium at a conference on confronting racial profiling, sponsored by Northeastern’s Institute on Race and Justice. Commending the institute’s research on racial profiling, Davis said, “It’s absolutely crucial to conduct this kind of research and to make it acceptable to community workers and police departments, so that something can be done strategically toward the citation of racial profiling.” The University of California, Santa Cruz, professor discussed topics ranging from President George W. Bush’s “evasiveness” on core issues surrounding the then-impending war with Iraq to the country’s prison population, in which African-American males are disproportionately represented. NU captures Business Beanpot Two teams of five undergraduates each took first and fourth places in the seventh annual Business Beanpot Case Analysis Competition, which pits teams from Northeastern’s College of Business Administration against their peers from MIT, Babson, Bentley, Suffolk, and Boston University. “This showed we have the best of the best of the business students in the Boston area,” said general management associate professor Raymond Kinnunen, coach of the Northeastern teams. Previous NU teams coached by Kinnunen won first place at the 1997, 1999, 2000, and 2001 Beanpots. Team members, handpicked by Kinnunen, had trained for months beforehand. At the event, held at Boston University in February, teams were given a business report of a company that produces interactive animation and visualization software, which was in need of investment capital. Students had five hours to analyze the business plan as if they were venture capitalists, and write a two-page paper outlining their findings and recommendations. Once the written portion of the competition was concluded, each team prepared a ten-minute oral presentation, which only the four semifinalist teams actually give, Kinnunen said. The first-place analysis, authored by students Dan Belcher, Emily Buckley, Alex Khalarian, Gilbert Owuor, and Agnes Walkowiak, offered criticism—they found the company’s revenue projections “overly aggressive”—outlined key issues, and ultimately supported a move to invest $750,000 toward the hire of more salespeople. The other Northeastern team—Anders Hoeym, Ann Nguyen, Marysharon Owens, Steven Schlafman, and Yves Andre Sejour—also made it to the semifinal round, ultimately taking fourth place. The intense twelve-hour event was founded with the idea of bringing the same level of competition generated at hockey’s Beanpot contests to the academic arena. The teams are judged by a panel of twelve business executives, who review the analyses and presentations. NU, BSO collaborate on website To mark the 2000–2001 centennial season of Boston’s Symphony Hall, Chinese composer Tan Dun created a multimedia musical event: a concerto for cello, video, and orchestra. Now, to give music fans around the world a look into the context and nuances of Tan’s concerto—as well as the work of other distinguished composers—a team of Northeastern faculty, students, and alumni have created another multimedia extravaganza: the new Online Conservatory feature on the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s website. Assistant professor Anthony De Ritis and assistant academic specialist Ann McDonald headed the project, aimed at drawing interested learners and listeners to <www.bso.org>, and to Symphony Hall. “The idea is to get people involved with music,” said De Ritis, himself a violinist, violist, and composer, and the head of Northeastern’s multimedia studies program. He said the website “enhances the [concert-going] experience” by creating “better-prepared” listeners. The first version of the Online Conservatory, presented in tandem with the BSO’s late-February program of music by Tan, Dmitri Shostakovich, John Cage, and Benjamin Britten, offered critical insight into the program’s selections and composers. Historic photos, music clips, an audio narration by De Ritis, a music glossary, and a quiz linked to each composer round out the multimedia presentation. The website also allows visitors to compose their own music or create variations on famous pieces. The impetus for the BSO project came from the Alumni Relations office, which was considering building online courses for continuing education. That led to a lunch with a BSO official, who said, “I’ve got a much bigger, better idea,” according to De Ritis. The BSO and Northeastern venture went “live” in February. “In [the Online Conservatory’s] first weekend, the BSO saw a thirty percent increase in traffic to its site, and the average visit was twenty-five minutes,” said De Ritis. “And on every page, the Northeastern University logo is next to the BSO logo.” Take a Bow! Longtime adjunct business-policy lecturer Robert Goldberg joined the company of mutual-fund titans Charles Schwab and Peter Lynch when he was named one of ten “Legends in Our Own Time” by Mutual Fund Market News. Goldberg was honored for his eleven-year presidency of the National Investment Company Service Association. He was also cited for helping the securities industry grow from a few million investors to seventy-seven million shareholders invested in highly specialized, diversified fund portfolios and for helping the industry negotiate the complications of Y2K. Goldberg has taught part-time at Northeastern since 1967. Last month, the Boston Globe—including Spotlight editor Walter V. Robinson, LA’74—received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for meritorious public service in journalism, for the Globe’s reporting on clergy sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic church. The Pulitzer board said the paper’s stories had “pierced secrecy; stirred local, national, and international reaction; and produced changes” inside the church. The Globe coverage began in January 2002 with a Spotlight series.