Q & A
Minton Goldman,
professor of political science, is an
expert on Eastern Europe. He lectured in Kosovo in November 1996 and found
it then to be a region dominated by ethnic conflict and resentment. Here,
he discusses the state of the conflict in Yugoslavia and the prospects
for future peace in the region.
Was Milosevic's intent to drive the Albanians
out of Kosovo or to suppress them as much as possible?
He wanted to reduce the number of Albanians in Kosovo from this untenable
ratio of nine Albanians to every one Serb to what one might call a manageable
level. He wanted to do that because the Albanian majority in Kosovo was
in a rather peculiar situation. The Albanians dominated the region, and
the Serbs were a majority in the rest of the country but a persecuted minority
in Kosovo. The only way Milosevic thought he could guarantee permanent
Serb control over Kosovo was to reduce the size of the Albanian population.
Were there direct orders to either drive out
or kill the Albanians?
Milosevic has a variety of military forces in Kosovo that suggests his
strategy was to literally destroy people-to kill them. The Yugoslav army
was there, the local police were there, and paramilitary organizations,
made up of Yugoslav toughs, were there and told to kill as many Albanians
as possible. My suspicion is that the nasty aspects of the Serbian military
offensive against the Albanian civilian population are not being carried
out by the Yugoslav army, but by the paramilitary toughs and hoodlums who
are paid by the Serbian government, given some status, and told to wreak
havoc, to scare the Albanians to death.
Is the NATO bombing campaign the appropriate
response?
I think the bombing was probably the only strategy with which you could
start off trying to discourage Milosevic and stop him. A more dramatic
method, such as deploying ground troops and risking the loss of life among
the Western nations, would have been politically untenable. However, I
think public opinion in the United States and Europe has changed and now
I think there is a sympathy-even a readiness-to support ground troops in
order to finish the job.
Can NATO achieve its objectives without ground
troops?
Ground troops have to go in, there's no question about it. Bombing will
not accomplish the major objective of NATO, which is to create a peaceful
and secure environment in Kosovo for the Albanian citizens. The Serbs are
totally and completely untrustworthy, and if there is no ground force from
the West in Kosovo, there is every reason to believe that these Serbian
authorities will continue to harass and badger the Albanian population
and maybe try to reduce it even further. But the big issue is do the troops
go in to a permissive or non-permissive environment?
Are you surprised by Milosevic's resolve?
No, and I think the U.S. government should not have been though it appears
it was. [Milosevic] has many of the same characteristics as Saddam Hussein.
Power is everything to him. In the final analysis, he doesn't really care
about how much damage is done to his people or his society as long as he
survives. He has to be destroyed.
What happens if he is removed?
There are problems. The democratic opposition to Milosevic is deeply
divided. It's a very naive group of liberals and they fight among themselves.
This is one of the reasons Milosevic has been able to survive. So this
poses a very serious obstacle to the development of democracy in Serbia
and a problem of who could take the place of Milosevic.
Is there a realistic compromise?
Probably not from the Serb point of view because NATO is going to win,
unless it gives up voluntarily. That being the case, I don't think you
can talk about compromise. NATO will get what it wants, as victors usually
do. The Serbs will have to accept that or suffer a continuation of the
conflict. But all bets are off if a decision is made among the big NATO
powers to start negotiating.
What about Russian involvement in negotiations?
I'm very suspicious of the Russians. They are considered now to be helpful,
and this is absurd. The Russians have no interest in helping NATO resolve
its problem with Kosovo. Russian policy has been to weaken, undermine,
challenge, drive a wedge into NATO, and that hasn't changed. Now the Russians
are absolutely livid that NATO has included countries as members who were
once allies with the former Soviet Union.
Would the Russians ever actively side with
and support the Serbs?
They are in no position. And they don't want to do it-there's no benefit
to them. Which raises the question, why are they so sympathetic to the
Serbs? It's more psychology than anything else. It's a matter of trying
to regain influence in the region. They are trying to show their people
that Russia still counts for something. So they talk tough, but they have
no power. In addition, some Russian leaders recognize that the Serbs and
Milosevic are untrustworthy allies and friends, undeserving of help. Also,
what can Serbia do to help Russia in return? Practically nothing.
What is likely to happen to the refugees?
It's not certain that all the refugees will want to go home. You can't
do enough in Kosovo to ensure their safety. Some refugees may simply decide
that it's better to live somewhere else. Those who go back will have to
go under the best of circumstances. That means safety and security, and
sufficient external forces to make sure they will not be killed in their
beds. It will also be necessary to spend a lot of money, from the West,
to rebuild Kosovo because economic conditions very frequently provoke nationalist
extremism.
Tipper Gore, at N.U., touts national service
Mourning the loss of a dozen
youths whose promising lives were cut short in last month's shooting rampage
in Littleton, Colo., Tipper Gore urged a gathering of students at Northeastern
to make their mark in the world through community service.
Gore, wife of vice president Al Gore, was the
featured speaker at an April 30 Call to Service rally for AmeriCorps, the
national service program that offers individuals education awards in exchange
for volunteer work in local communities. The organization is seeking to
recruit 50,000 new members nationwide this year.
"[Joining AmeriCorps] is a way to give back,
a way to start down the road to volunteerism and a way to create, in the
words of Martin Luther King, 'a beloved community,' " Gore told about
200 high school and college students in Blackman Auditorium. "That
is the foundation for what makes America so great."
Since its founding in 1994, AmeriCorps has helped
more than 4,000 communities and 32 million people through such services
as tutoring, food and clothing distribution, and neighborhood cleanups.
Northeastern was chosen as the latest site for
the volunteer drive because its Athletes in Service to America program,
under the auspices of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society, is
considered a "star AmeriCorps program," according to Harris Wofford,
chief executive officer of the Corporation for National Service. The antiviolence
program recruits current and former collegiate athletes to work with young
people in schools and community centers.
Research team wins $20 million NSF grant
A research team directed by Stephen Reucroft, Matthews distinguished
professor of physics, has been awarded a $20.2 million grant from the National
Science Foundation to construct a high-energy particle detector in France.
Called a compact muon spectrometer, the detector will be built entirely
underground, stretching as high as a nine-story building and just as long.
The five-year project is expected to be completed by 2005.
"This is a big deal for Northeastern," Reucroft said. "And
more important than the money is the prestige. The National Science Foundation
is taking Northeastern seriously."
The grant is one of only two large federal awards given to a pair of
research groups working with the European Laboratory for Particle Physics,
known as CERN, located in Geneva, Switzerland. Northeastern's consortium
includes the Universities of California at Los Angeles and San Diego, the
University of Illinois at Chicago, Johns Hopkins University, Rutgers University,
the University of Nebraska, the University of Notre Dame, and Virginia
Tech.
When completed, the new spectrometer will be one of the largest and
most complex particle detectors ever built and will likely be the highest
energy accelerator in the world for the next twenty years, Reucroft said.
The detector will reconstruct and identify high-energy collisions of protons,
which Reucroft called "the highest energy level ever achieved on Earth."
"We are trying to recreate the big bang, or as close as we can,"
he added. "We're not sure where many of our laws of physics came from,
and so we have to go back and find out."
The Northeastern and Columbia University colliders will become the major
data collecting instruments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider facility.
Take a BOW!
Richard Lapchick, director of N.U.'s Center for the Study of
Sport in Society, was presented the "Heroes Among Us" award in
February by the Boston Celtics for his contributions to society and the
Boston community.
Seven N.U. athletes earned recognition as Academic All-Americans this
spring. They are: Hillary McHugh, Tori Calio, and Karrie Danilecki,
field hockey; Doug Tillberg, football; Betsy Palecek, women's
basketball; Marcus Blossom, men's basketball; and Hillary Witt,
women's ice hockey.
Gerald Schumacher, professor of pharmacy practice, was selected
the 1999 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy's Distinguished Pharmacy
Educator by the AACP board of directors. The award, which recognizes outstanding
individual achievement in pharmaceutical education, will be presented at
the group's annual banquet in July.
Campus Footnotes
Put away your calculators and algebra books. If you really want to improve
your math SAT scores, learn to speak and write Chinese. That's according
to Chieh Li, assistant professor of counseling psychology, and a colleague
at Boston College. Their research has found that because Chinese alphabetical
characters are more complicated and precise than those in English, students
who are fluent in Chinese develop better spatial reasoning skills. That,
in turn, can improve math test scores. The pair's study, conducted with
American college students of Chinese descent, was published in the February
issue of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.
Director of University Relations Charles Coffin, who has overseen the
publishing of Northeastern University Alumni Magazine since 1989, has announced
he will take early retirement in July after twenty years at the university.
Coffin, who has served three presidents during his tenure, came to Northeastern
in 1979 and launched the university's government relations office. His
efforts culminated in winning $13.5 million in federal dollars to make
possible the building of the Snell Library. In 1987, he went to work as
a strategic planner in the office of then executive vice president John
Curry, where he wrote and helped implement the university's 1987 strategic
plan. Coffin assumed his current position in 1989. In addition to the alumni
magazine, he oversees university communications, Web services, publications,
conference and event planning, photography, and the faculty and staff newspaper.
President Freeland said he will immediately begin the search for Coffin's
successor.
What are the hottest firms going in Massachusetts? To answer that question,
the Boston Herald tapped the expertise of N.U. business professors James
Molloy, Frederick Wiseman, and Paul Bolster, who conducted an in-depth
analysis of the top publicly held companies in the state. Topping the list
of "Superstar Ten" firms was CMGI of Andover, an Internet development
and investment company.
Legacy Scholarships a lasting gift
As a high school senior in Seminole, Florida, Megan
Parvis aspired to attend just one university: Northeastern. But coming
from a family of modest means, she thought the cost of a private education
might be out of reach.
Then Parvis got the good news: she had been selected as one of the College
of Engineering's first Legacy Scholars and would receive up to $5,000 per
year toward her schooling throughout her academic career.
"If it hadn't been for the scholarship, I wouldn't have come to
the university," Parvis said. "I was ecstatic when I heard about
it."
Last month, Parvis for the first time met her scholarship benefactors,
Joseph Heney, E'52, H'90, and his wife, Frances. They are among twenty-five
alumni who have pledged funds to establish a permanent, named Legacy scholarship.
"Northeastern has been very good to me, and this was a chance to
give something back," Heney said. "It's a benefit to the [engineering]
college and a benefit to the university to attract some highly rated scholars."
College officials are now seeking $10 million in permanent endowment
to fund up to 100 Legacy Scholars at any given time.
"Based on the response to date so far and the quality of students
we've been able to attract, we're encouraged we'll enlist a heck of a lot
more alumni support and then attract a heck of a lot more scholars,"
said Philip Cunningham, director of alumni development for the College
of Engineering,
Each year, up to twenty freshmen will be selected to receive the renewable
scholarships. Recipients are required to maintain a grade-point average
of at least 3.0 and a successful record of co-op experience.
Those who would like to assist the Legacy Scholarship program may contact
Cunningham at 617-373-4829, or e-mail <p.cunningham@nunet.neu.edu>.
Inoculating against the millennium bug
A comprehensive plan to prepare the university's myriad
computer systems for potential complications resulting from the turn of
the century is progressing quickly, and officials are confident the so-called
millennium, or Y2K, bug will steer clear of campus.
"We don't expect any significant disruptions in operation in the
year 2000," vice president for information services Robert Weir said.
"The trick, of course, is that it takes a lot to make that statement
come true."
Weir said the university is in the middle of an extensive effort to
address the needs of thousands of computers and software packages across
campus that are not equipped to handle the time frames spanning two centuries.
The glitch stems from faulty planning early in the life of computing
by programmers and developers worldwide, who coded dates as six digits
rather than eight digits to save memory space on primitive machines. Thus,
August 11, 1998, appears as "081198," rather than the preferred
"08111998." As a result, computers using the six-digit field
will reset their dates to 1900 rather than 2000 next January 1.
CBA Reclaims Beanpot
For the second time in three years, a team of Northeastern
undergraduates has captured the Business School Beanpot Case Analysis Competition.
Northeastern defeated eleven other teams from six area universities,
including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston College, Boston
University, Bentley College, and Babson College. N.U. placed third last
year and won the inaugural event in 1997.
"They were out of sight," said Raymond Kinnunen, associate
professor of general management and the team's adviser. "It just goes
to show that Northeastern can compete with the best. In fact, I'd take
this team against any team in the country."
Following the same format as past competitions, each team assumed the
role of consultant and developed a two-page written proposal based on a
case study of an Irish multinational corporation. After separate thirty-minute
presentations and a question-and-answer session from the judges, Northeastern
was crowned the champion.
The winning team featured J. Clinton Fowler, James Bonetti, Jason Cherry,
Laura Foggini, and Robert Boroujerdi.
"They were the best prepared team and it showed," Kinnunen
said. "They peaked on game day, so to speak. They were unbelievable."
Kinnunen also credited Northeastern's other entry, which trained with
the winning team as a group, with helping to push their classmates to victory.
Those team members were Florencio Menceyra, Jeffrey Cloud, Laura Riddle,
Shannon McMurtry, and Tarek El Sherif.
The annual event was founded by a pair of Boston University students
and modeled after the hockey Beanpot. The program is sponsored by a number
of area corporations.
University charts course for future development
University officials last month filed an initial master plan with the
city of Boston that outlines the campus development plans for the next
decade. Among the most pressing needs defined in the document are student
housing, academic facilities, parking, open space, and Northeastern's relationship
with the neighborhood.
Already, the university is on its way to completing a 630-bed apartment-style
residence hall on west campus; has won approval for mixed-use housing on
Columbus Avenue; and is proposing a 470-bed, two-part complex adjacent
to the west campus hall. In addition, ground is expected to be broken soon
on a 980-car garage next to Renaissance Park and a health sciences building
and adjacent garage near Ruggles Street.
"In three years, Northeastern is going to be phenomenal-looking,"
said Thomas Keady Jr., director of government relations and community affairs.
Also contained in the plan-which officials describe as a wish list for
future development-are proposals for a squash/fitness facility near Columbus
Avenue, three new buildings on west campus for housing and administrative
and academic space, a parking garage near Camden Street, and a series of
three buildings at Renaissance Park for a hotel as well as conference and
business space.
The master plan also calls for short-term and long-term renovations
to numerous existing buildings and suggests the possibility of creating
open space by obtaining air rights over the MBTA tracks.
"A lot of this could change, depending on the economy and finances,"
said Keady, noting that the initial master plan must now circulate through
governmental and community review processes before it's finalized.
Task force to examine N.U. access programs
Saying Northeastern should not abandon its mission to make educational
opportunities available to students from all backgrounds, provost David
Hall has convened a task force to examine, assess, and analyze the strengths
and weaknesses of the university's access programs.
Hall said a review of such programs is critical, especially at a time
when the university is pursuing a philosophy of a "smaller but better"
student body. If access is a viable and important feature of the Northeastern
mission, Hall said, then it must be enhanced.
"One of the fundamental values at Northeastern has been the concept
that education should be accessible to all students regardless of their
income, their circumstances in life, or their race and gender," Hall
said. "It is important that we continue that tradition and mission."
President Freeland agreed that the work of the task force will be central
to Northeastern's future.
"While everyone in the leadership of the institution is pleased
with the academic progress that we're making and the higher level of preparation
of our entering students and the greater selectivity in admissions, we
are also mindful of the danger that this greater selectivity and rising
standards could adversely affect access of constituencies we have historically
served," he said.
Among those constituencies, Freeland said, are older working adults,
young people from modest financial backgrounds, and urban students of color.
"We want to make sure that the gates of Northeastern remain open
to these constituencies even as we pursue this ambitious academic agenda,"
he said.
Northeastern's long history of making a college education a reachable
goal has opened doors for many students. Programs such as the School of
General Studies and Project Ujima in African-American studies have long
recruited and admitted students who struggled to meet the traditional requirements
for admission.
"We want to be sure that the university does not have barriers
that are hindering us from serving the broader population," said task
force member Leon Zaborowski, vice provost for adult and continuing education
and dean of University College, where the general studies program is based.
Civil activists tapped as graduation speakers
Two prominent civil rights activists who went on to
make their mark in Georgia politics, Julian Bond and John Lewis, will be
the featured speakers at spring commencement ceremonies June 19 in Boston's
FleetCenter. Both will also receive honorary doctoral degrees.
University officials also announced that U.S. District Court judge Nancy
Gertner will give the main address at law school graduation exercises May
28 in Matthews Arena.
Bond, currently a distinguished scholar in residence at American University
in Washington, D.C., and a professor of history at the University of Virginia,
will deliver the keynote speech during morning graduation ceremonies at
10 a.m. Lewis, a seven-term congressman and chief deputy Democratic whip
of the U.S. House of Representatives, will address University College and
advanced-degree recipients during afternoon exercises at 3:15.
Bond vaulted onto the national stage in the mid-1960s when he was twice
elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, only to have the House
vote not to seat him because of his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam
War. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Bond's rights had been violated,
and he subsequently served four terms in the Georgia House and six terms
in the Senate.
Lewis has spent more than four decades in the vanguard of progressive
social movements and the human rights struggle. He took a leading role
in the 1961 Freedom Rides, helped organize the historic "March on
Washington" in 1963, and was a leading proponent of the Voting Rights
Act of 1965. He was first elected to represent Georgia's Fifth Congressional
District in 1985.
Gertner holds master's and law degrees from Yale University, where she
is presently a visiting law professor. Prior to her appointment to the
bench, she was a partner at two Boston law firms.
Olympic hockey hero joins Hall of Fame
Shelley Looney, who scored the game-winning goal in
the U.S. women's hockey team's Gold Medal championship game in last year's
Olympics, heads a list of seven former Husky athletes who will join the
Northeastern Hall of Fame this month.
A native of Trenton, Michigan, Looney was a star forward at Northeastern
and earned Player of the Year honors in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic
Conference as a senior. She helped the Huskies to a 73-25-8 record from
199194 and graduated as Northeastern's fifth all-time goal scorer
with sixty-eight.
Others to be inducted in ceremonies May 21 are: basketball's Richard
Brooks, football's Bill Lafreniere, sports booster and current vice president
for business Jack Martin, former hockey coach Don McKenney, basketball's
Keith Motley, field hockey's Anne Mucera, and track's Robert Ortrando.
University honored for service to city
Black & White Boston, an organization of multiracial men and women
that promotes interaction between the races, recently honored Northeastern
for its positive economic and social impact on the inner city.
President Freeland accepted the Business Profile Award last month at
the organization's tenth annual dinner-dance at the Kennedy Library in
Boston. The award citation said Northeastern "has continued to strengthen
its ties with the community by fostering educational and economic opportunities
for inner-city residents and businesses. As one of many partners working
to revitalize Lower Roxbury, Northeastern hopes to raise the bar for other
urban universities, setting a new benchmark for community involvement."
Honored along with Northeastern was TJX Companies, the Framinghambased
parent corporation of retailers T. J. Maxx and Marshalls.
New rooms at the (Ashland) Inn
Seeking to capitalize on the thriving conference and
training market, the university has opened new overnight facilities at
the Warren Conference Center in Ashland.
The $4 million structure features fifty luxury guestrooms, two state-of-the-art
meeting rooms, and an inviting lobby and lounge area. Previously, the center
housed just twelve overnight rooms and relied mostly on one-day social
and business events.
"In order to compete in this marketplace, you need to have overnight
accommodations," explained business manager William Mallon.
Opened on April 1, the new facility is nestled in the woods overlooking
a reservoir on the rustic 200-acre Ashland property. The 360-square-foot
guestrooms feature queen beds, private baths, private telephones, cable
television and video cassette recorder, air-conditioning, and Internet
access.
The Ashland facility, located twenty-five miles west of Boston, specializes
in meetings, outings and retreats, weddings and other social events, and
professional development courses. Along with Henderson House in Weston,
Massachusetts, it is one of two major conference facilities operated by
the university.
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