Where the Heart Is

Alumni who discovered the deep rewards of coming home again

You’ve been away from Northeastern for more than a few years now. You’ve been focused on your career, your kids, the bills. Whenever you get the chance, though, you like to catch up on what’s happening at your alma mater.

You read, with a mixture of happy surprise and pride, about the strides Northeastern is making: new buildings, leading-edge programs, renowned faculty, higher student selectivity. You hear Northeastern—lo and behold—is being called a “hot” school.

With all the buzz, you think maybe you’d like to get involved, become part of the forward momentum. But you wonder what form that involvement could or should take.

Sure, you could give money (always welcome, of course). Yet, as the following profiles illustrate, there are plenty of other ways to make an impact. Some grads help the university sponsor programs for retirees. Others support as many Husky sports events as they can. Some help Latino students build personal and professional networks. Others set up their own scholarship funds.

Whether you graduated five years or five decades ago, it really doesn’t matter when you left. What matters, you’ll discover, is when you came back.

The Fifty-Year Itch

Rose Fishman Lerner, LA'53 / Herbert Lerner, E'50

Back when Herbert Lerner, E’50, and Rose Fishman, LA’53, attended Northeastern, they didn’t give much thought to staying involved with the university after graduation.

After all, Rose says, “we didn’t have strong feelings about the school. It was a big inner-city school, and everyone lived at home or in apartments. It was hard to get to know people.”

Fast-forward to today. Herbert and Rose—who met during Rose’s senior year and married in 1955—are newly involved with Northeastern and impressed with the enormous changes at the school over the decades.

“It’s a completely different university,” says Rose. “It was all asphalt when I went there. Now there’s grass and flowers and trees, new buildings, wonderful new lecture halls, and amazing programs. I’m very proud of the school.”

Twenty years after earning her bachelor’s degree in biology, Rose returned to Northeastern to become certified in medical records administration (now called health information management), going on to what she calls “a great career” that enabled her to hire a number of Northeastern co-op students. Herbert, an electrical engineering graduate who also earned a Harvard MBA, spent many years working in engineering management at Raytheon.

These days, the Lexington, Massachusetts, couple are helping the university start up Northeastern @ Noon, a monthly lunch and lecture series for retirees. They also served on a focus group that evaluated the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s new Online Conservatory, which two Northeastern professors helped create, and were very involved in their respective fifty-year reunions.

Ironically, Herbert says, when he got the call asking if he’d serve on his fiftieth-reunion committee, he said yes only reluctantly. Now a member of both the Alumni Association board of directors and the Golden Graduates council, he’s glad he took the plunge—nearly five decades after graduating. “Working with my fellow alumni and the administration,” he says, “has been a very enjoyable experience.”

Hanging with the Dream Team

Lloyd Mullin, BA'64 / Bernard Solomon, LA'46, H'91 / William Cotter, LA'73

Lloyd Mullin still regrets he was in Tokyo on business in 1980 when Northeastern won its first Beanpot.

That’s because Mullin, BA’64, nearing retirement after close to forty years selling and distributing electronic products, has loved Husky hockey since day one. So have Bernard “Bunny” Solomon, LA’46, H’91, and William Cotter, LA’73, a former icer himself. Their shared passion has made the trio—university trustees who have each helped fund NU athletic programs and facilities—fast friends over the years.

As Mullin, a Brookline, Massachusetts, resident, puts it, “We all love the school. And we all love the games.”

“I wouldn’t say we’re inseparable,” adds Solomon, a resident of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, now retired after vice presidencies with the Bank of New England and Stop & Shop, which followed several state government positions. “But we spend a lot of time together.”

Cotter, a financial adviser at UBS Financial Services (he’s Mullin’s and Solomon’s broker) who lives in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, calls a 1997 trip he and Solomon took to California to watch the Northeastern football team play St. Mary’s “absolutely fabulous.” He and Solomon still chuckle about how a friend’s wife, hearing that Solomon and Cotter were sharing a hotel room, joked she was going to buy Cotter a T-shirt that read, “I Slept with Bunny.”

The memories stretch way back. More than three decades ago, after learning the young man about to marry a friend’s niece was interested in attending and playing hockey for Northeastern, Solomon got Cotter an introduction to then athletic director Herb Gallagher. At Cotter’s inaugural game, Solomon sat behind the net.

“He scored the first goal of the season,” Solomon says, “then he picked up the puck and threw it to me.”

Though Mullin has always come to Northeastern hockey games, he didn’t get seriously involved with other aspects of the university until the past decade. “Billy introduced me to Bunny, and once you meet Bunny, you’ve met everybody,” says Mullin. “He’s the goodwill ambassador.

“My feeling about Northeastern is very similar to [Solomon’s and Cotter’s],” Mullin adds. “We’re thrilled with the reports that keep coming out, about the higher SAT scores, the quality of the students, the shrinking class sizes, the achievements of the professors.”

Solomon applauds another kind of Husky determination. “Professional players make big money,” he says.

“But college kids have to go to class, study, practice all the time, go to
away games—and most are not going to be pros. It’s dedication to the game and the school, and I appreciate that.”

An Affinity for Staying Involved

Marco Bonilla, E'98 / Claudia Guzman, BA'94

Claudia Guzman, BA’94, will always remember that barbecue in 1997—the one where everybody got stung by bees.

“The person who hosted it had a bee farm,” explains Guzman, who lives in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. “You’re not supposed to take out the honey if you’re expecting a large group of people.” But, honeycombs removed, “the bees were a little feisty.”

The barbecue was memorable for another reason. Guzman and her friends had been active in Latino affairs while they were Northeastern students. That summer day, as they talked and ate, they decided they needed to stay involved.

Thus was born the Society of Latino/a Alumni (SOLA), which serves as an after-graduation version of LASO, the university’s Latin American Student Organization. Guzman, the first SOLA president, is now vice president. Marco Bonilla, E’98, of Roslindale, Massachusetts, a senior product engineer at M/A-COM, is the current president.

Both Guzman and Bonilla say they love being part of SOLA, one of a half-dozen “affinity” alumni organizations, defined by interest or activity instead of by class year.

“We were a very active group when we were students,” says Guzman, who worked in advertising for eight years before attending Bentley College to earn a master’s in information-age marketing. “We were the ones who met with the president and got the Latino Student Cultural Center going, and helped initiate scholarships for Latino students as well as the Latino, Latin American, and Caribbean Studies program.

“So after graduation,” she says, “we wanted to create a group, not just for networking and keeping in touch, but for helping Latino students on campus.”

“We always had a close social tie,” Bonilla agrees, “but we weren’t very connected to the school anymore. We wanted to come back and tie it all together.”

SOLA now works with the Latino/a Student Cultural Center and the university’s Career Services office to sponsor an annual spring event called Caminos (“pathways”), at which Latino graduates give career advice to current students.

The group also hosts major social programs twice a year. During homecoming weekend, SOLA arranges a banquet, an outing, and a “mocktail” that allow alumni to socialize and network with current students. In the spring, SOLA welcomes alumni to campus for another weekend that features a barbecue, a banquet, and gatherings at local clubs.

In addition, members help recruit Latino students to Northeastern, act as tutors, and are hoping to put together a book on Latino history at the university.

“A lot of current students have parents who have never gone to college or are from another country,” Guzman says. “They need more support than your average student.

“Coming back as alumni to help,” she says, “whether it be in admissions, working on a fundraiser for the Latino cultural center, or talking with students about career paths—we’re all making a difference.”

Out on the Leading Edge