INAUGURATING A NEW ERA

Amid pomp and ceremony, President Freeland takes office. BY JAMES R. ROSS

The new president of Northeastern University is rehearsing the inaugural speech that he is to give in less than twenty-four hours. "But we can serve better and we must contribute more. The times, more eloquently even than our critics, compel us to respond to imperatives of the future and not be content with patterns of the past . . . " Richard M. Freeland turns to the next page-and stops in mid-sentence.

"The next page in my copy is upside down," he says, as he continues to flip over pages. "All the rest of the pages are upside down." After a moment, he pretends, with a comic flair, to climb around the lectern and over the conference table to read the speech from the other side.

He picks up the pages again and resumes the rehearsal, working on his pacing, his posture, and his tendency to look down at his text at the end of sentences. He revises some phrases and listens to advice from Mary Breslauer, the university's director of communications. "Thanks for badgering me, Mary," he says good-naturedly at one point. Finally, concerned about having time for dinner with his wife and daughter, he pauses.

"I think we should do what they did in Vietnam," he says. "Just declare victory and keep on moving." His wife, Elsa Nuñez, with whom he celebrated their first wedding anniversary the weekend before, laughs from the other end of the conference table and says not to rush. "I'm only making pasta," she whispers.

Freeland and daughter Maria, clap to the soulful melodies of the Persuasions.

Freeland's speech is to cap a series of events that form Inauguration Week. But the focus, the president says, should be not on his speech but on the week's events. He is attending nearly all of them.

On January 14, three days before the inauguration, Aaron Feuerstein, the seventy-year-old owner of Malden Mills, speaks fervently at a panel on corporate responsibility. "In the long term, doing the right thing adds to the profitability of the corporation," says Feuerstein, who gained fame for pledging to keep all his workers on the payroll while he rebuilt his Lawrence plant after it was gutted in a 1995 fire. "He's probably spoken in public on the subject hundreds of times," Freeland says later, "but you can still see tears in his eyes and hear the emotion in his voice."

The next day, Freeland attends the opening of a poster exhibit on student research. "It's easy for people to forget the quality of work that we can do," he says. "We're really a very good place."

On the day before the inauguration, the president introduces the annual Martin Luther King Jr. convocation and honors Ellen Jackson, dean of affirmative action, with the first President's Award for Achievement in Social Justice. Then he listens to Christopher Edley, a Harvard University law professor, deliver a stirring keynote address, challenging the university to open its doors to the community and to teach students how to effect social change. "The university must be a model of how to bring about racial healing," Edley says.

Freeland concedes that he is not a commanding public speaker like Feuerstein or a gifted orator like Edley. He has worked hard for many days to write and deliver an address that will clearly define his goals for the university. But on the night before his speech, the president-like thousands of others at the Curry Student Center-is having a good time.

There has never been a night like this at Northeastern. More than 3,000 students, staff, and faculty-and even a few young men from the neighborhood-crowd into every suite, lounge, and sitting area in the Curry Student Center's four floors. There is cool jazz and hot brass, swing and soul, a feverish video dance party and the inevitable karaoke, bouncy cheerleaders, and an unlikely cameo by someone who is supposed to be Ben Franklin. The evening has been dubbed the President's First Night, borrowing the term from the celebrated Boston New Year's festivities. And like its namesake, it somehow all works-even the massive coat check operation.

Freeland is in his element. He seems to be on every floor shaking every hand, as Nuñez hugs every shoulder and their daughter, Maria, politely answers every question. (Richard and Elsa's son, Antony, has remained at home in New York to take an exam, Nuñez says, "but he said to tell 'home boy' good luck.")

"I think we should head downstairs now," an aide instructs the president, spreading her arms wide as if to protect the first family from the surrounding crowd. But the president, his wife, and daughter have already waded into a new group of well-wishers. The small entourage flows from floor to floor, seemingly offering a moment and a kind word to everyone.

Later that evening, Elsa and Richard dance to band music and stand on stage to greet surprise guest Livingston Taylor. "Who is he?" one student asks. "James Taylor's brother," another student says knowledgeably. "Weird," mutters the first.

After the festivities, Freeland returns to his apartment near campus with Nuñez and Maria. Rather than getting some rest, he resumes work on his speech.

Freeland puts the finishing touches on his speech in his Massachusetts Avenue apartment.

When he arrives at matthews arena the next morning for one final run-through, Freeland seems in command. He has memorized much of the speech and is emphasizing all the right words, looking up at the right places. He appears comfortable at the lectern. "Excellent. You look good, you sound good," communications director Breslauer says as she walks toward the stage.

To Freeland's right, a technician is testing chords on the organ. Other workers set up chairs and adjust the video screens on either side of the stage. Behind and above the president, workers on scaffolding assemble and adjust spotlights. Wrenches, bolts, and even a spotlight crash thirty feet to the stage. Yet Freeland somehow manages to retain his concentration-until the telephone rings. The sound echoes through the microphones in front of him, interrupting his speech. "Where's the phone? Where's that coming from?" he asks.

Breslauer jumps to the stage, reaches under the notebook that contains the president's speech, and removes her cellular phone, which had been propping the notebook up. "Is that going to happen during my talk?" Freeland asks. "We'll get a piece of wood or something to prop it up this afternoon," Breslauer replies.

An hour later, hundreds of faculty, staff, and visiting dignitaries gather at tables in the Student Center for the inaugural luncheon. One faculty member is assigned to serve as host at each table. As coffee is being served, President Freeland approaches the lectern at the head table. His remarks are brief. "I only have one speech written for today," he says, "and this isn't it. But I want to welcome all of you, visitors from more than 200 colleges and universities, faculty, staff, and friends."

Freeland and George Matthews approach the stage.

Two hours later, university marshal raymond Robinson waits to lead the inaugural procession. As chair of the history department in the late 1960s, he hired Freeland as a lecturer. At a department meeting last year to grant Freeland tenure after he was named president, "I told him we still had his personnel file from the '60s," Robinson says. "He seemed surprised."

Freeland's selection as president last May drew widespread praise, much of it because the Board of Trustees had shown openness to change by selecting an outsider to head the university for the first time in its history. Seven years earlier, when the trustees promoted John A. Curry from within the university bureaucracy, the choice was greeted by the Faculty Senate with a vote of no-confidence in the selection process. The faculty had felt betrayed by Curry's last-minute reemergence as a candidate and was dismissive of his academic credentials. His inauguration was a subdued, low-key affair. But many faculty members see Freeland, an academic and a historian, as one of their own. The celebratory tone of the inauguration week and the archaic pomp of the inaugural ceremony reflect those contrasts and connections.

Robinson, carrying the university mace, begins the march. A brass ensemble, accompanied by a well-tuned organ, plays majestic processional music as robed faculty and dignitaries enter the arena from behind both sides of the stage. They march-or, to be precise, stroll and shuffle-up the center aisle to their seats on the arena floor, facing the stage. They leave empty seats in most rows, causing maintenance workers to scramble in with more folding chairs, holding up the procession for a few minutes.

The Reverend Michael Haynes, minister of the nearby Twelfth Baptist Church, delivers the invocation, alluding to the new president's commitment to the surrounding Boston neighborhoods, especially Roxbury. The chairman of the Board of Trustees, George J. Matthews, then offers his welcome to the "sixth presidential inauguration in the ninety-nine-year history of Northeastern."

Outgoing U.S. labor secretary Robert Reich steps to the podium, speaking ahead of the schedule printed in the program so that he can leave to attend the festivities of another inaugural, that of 1993 university commencement speaker William Jefferson Clinton. Northeastern is "an important model for the rest of the nation," declares Reich, husband of law school associate dean Clare Dalton. "Practice-oriented education, open to a diverse group of people from different cultural and academic and economic backgrounds, is a profoundly relevant idea. It's a profoundly important idea, given especially the economy and the society to which we are evolving."

After a musical interlude, Matthews acknowledges the presence of former Presidents Curry and Kenneth G. Ryder on the stage before turning to Freeland. Following tradition, Matthews presents Freeland with a copy of the university charter and places the presidential lavaliere around his neck. The two men hug warmly as the assemblage rises for a standing ovation lasting more than a minute.

At 4:15 p.m., freeland delivers his long-awaited inaugural address. "Not only do I accept the presidency of Northeastern, I embrace it," he begins. "Not only do I succeed to this position, I leap to it. Not only am I honored by this appointment, I am exhilarated by it." He is interrupted by applause. "I wanted this job," he continues, to appreciative laughter from the audience, "and I confess with Shakespeare's King Harry, on this, the most important day of my professional life, 'if it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive.' " The quotation generates more smiles and a few knowing nods from faculty members.

The speech outlines Freeland's goals for the university, drawing from his work as a historian and his belief in Northeastern's mission to serve society. He lists what he sees as the three central elements of the university's "special character": its history of providing educational opportunity, of working with the surrounding neighborhoods, and of connecting with the workplace and the world of practice.

"Our aspiration, building on our traditions, building on our ties to Boston, must be national leadership in education oriented toward practice and scholarship oriented toward technical and social progress," he says. "To become a national leader we must reinvent ourselves and redesign our approach to practice-oriented education."

The university's goals, he says, should include teaching students advanced skills in analysis and problem-solving, preparing them to adapt to different jobs and conditions, and fostering the ability to work in teams and with people from other backgrounds and cultures. "These needs call out to us to fundamentally rethink our educational programs," he says. "We must broaden, deepen, and greatly intensify the learning experiences of Northeastern students."

Freeland calls the isolation of co-op, professional education, and liberal arts from one another a key obstacle, "leaving students to figure out for themselves how liberal learning undergirds professional skill, how concrete experience informs academic theory, and how abstract conception leads to practical insight.

"This fragmentation," he continues, "robs our programs of impact. To fully empower our graduates, we must create a new form of education that synthesizes the three learning experiences we offer." He challenges the faculty to invent "an integrated plan of practice-oriented education."

More applause greets the president as he outlines plans for twelve presidential scholarships-three-year, full-tuition grants to be awarded annually to third-year students who excel in professional studies, liberal learning, and co-op. He also announces a three-year, $25 million program to create eight endowed chairs for nationally renowned professors "whose work is characterized by usefulness and recognition in the professional arenas that correspond to our colleges."

Freeland ends the inaugural address by quoting Martin Luther King Jr. and his call to "move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge, to make America a better nation." Another minute-long standing ovation greets the conclusion of the thirty-three-minute speech. The newly vested president seems relieved that the speech is over and has been well received.

As the university choral society sings the alma mater, the recessional begins. Because of the extreme cold, buses transport most of the delegates, trustees, faculty, administrators, and visiting dignitaries the short distance back to the Student Center, where they gather for a postinaugural reception. They circulate among trays of sweets and fruit-a fitting finale to an overdose of food throughout the week's events-exchanging pleasantries and reactions to the speech.

A few administrators and faculty members seem confident, at least for the moment, that the university is already moving toward what Freeland envisions. Others hear in the speech a call for radical change. Some welcome it. "I'm pleased by his continuing commitment to Boston and to practice-oriented education," one administrator says. Others are not so sanguine. "I didn't hear anything about research, anything about academic excellence. Where does theory fit in?" a professor comments.

A week later, in an interview in his office, freeland talks about reactions to his speech and elaborates on his goals. He rejects suggestions that much of what he proposes is already being accomplished. "We may not be far from what we've said we want to do, but it's far from what we actually do. We need to think about fundamental changes in the way we deliver education and carry out scholarly activity . . . significant change, not tinkering at the margins," he says.

Co-op, which Freeland calls N.U.'s signature, is at the heart of his concerns and plans. "We need to develop a truly integrated curricular experience involving co-op, the liberal arts, and professional education, a well-thought-out system of related experiences. We haven't achieved that. Co-op is not part of the classroom, of the syllabi of courses in most disciplines, even in business and engineering. Courses should be examining co-op work in the intellectual context of the classroom. We should structure learning to build on co-op, to relearn the context after the experience. At the same time, students on co-op need to systematically examine what they learn in the classroom."

He recognizes the radical seed in this idea: calling for faculty members schooled in strict academic traditions to incorporate practice-based learning in their thinking and work. "Part of the problem is that faculty members with little practical experience have difficulty integrating experience into the classroom. They themselves operate in the dark," he says. "So for this to work, faculty members have to be involved in practice and service activities. That's very different from what we have now."

The existing model of academia is separation: "to stay within disciplinary cells and even subdisciplinary cells," he says. To eliminate these traditional boundaries, he suggests the creation of new majors or dual majors for undergraduates, in which Arts and Sciences faculty and professional faculty would cooperate to design sequences of courses.

But he recognizes the difficulty of this task, saying, "The gravitational forces are clearly in the direction of everyone staying in their own furrow and letting students figure out how it all fits together."

Not surprisingly, some of the faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences are unhappy with the inaugural speech, viewing it as a call for diminishing their college and placing it in a subordinate role to the professional programs. Freeland acknowledges the criticism and recognizes the difficulties of initiating change.

"My twenty-five years of experience in this business tells me that fundamental change takes time. You have to look at the whole system by which you build a faculty, beginning with recruitment. You want people who are professionally and intellectually challenged by teaching here, not just excited about teaching at a respectable university which happens to be within commuting distance of Harvard Square."

But cooperation from the faculty-particularly those with tenure-cannot be created on demand. "If the whole faculty says, 'We're not interested in this,' then we've got a problem," he says. "It certainly would be a great mistake to ask faculty members to behave in ways that are counter to their interests professionally. The power of [academic societies] is very strong and we need to respect that. I get impatient with that, but we have to respect it. The answer is going to come with sensitive implementation, department by department."

Nor does change rule out differing views about teaching, he says: "I also want to make sure that Northeastern remains a big tent. There has to be a role for critics and for those who go a different way."

Creating an appetite for change among Northeastern's 750 full-time faculty members requires a two-pronged approach, Freeland says: "We have to try to create enthusiasm for change. We have to build into the system genuine benefits for everyone to engage in these activities."

Altering the fundamental structure of the university is not as difficult today, he asserts, as it would have been twenty years ago, when the model of the research university dominated academia. That model remains sound for some schools, but has led to "absurd extremes" in others, he says. For that reason, "there's a lot of interest in asserting some different values now and focusing on student learning."

Ultimately, the president says, his role in leading Northeastern is one of persuasion. "Change . . . can't be imposed by the president or the deans. Individual members of the faculty have to believe it has value. We have to reach an institutional consensus that this is really something we want to take on."

James Ross, an associate professor of journalism, wrote about President Clinton's commencement speech in the August 1993 issue.

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