Excellence in Teaching Awards
Since 1980, the university has presented Excellence
in Teaching Awards to full-time faculty members who have made outstanding
contributions in the classroom. This year's recipients, pictured below,
were honored at the June 21 morning commencement ceremonies in the FleetCenter.
Thomas Gilbert Associate professor of chemistry
Celebrity who'd make a good teacher: Director/producer
George Lucas. "You have to know your audience, know how to hold their
attention, and then essentially tell them stories and teach them lessons.
I can't think of anyone better at doing just that."
Stephen Reucroft Matthews distinguished professor of physics
Person he most admires: Robert Fripp, guitarist
for avant-garde rock band King Crimson. "The best rock guitarist ever,
and nobody's heard of him. It must be very hard to be ahead of your time."
Carla Oblas Clinical assistant professor of mathematical practice
Inspiration for becoming an educator: "Girls
were supposed to be teachers, so it was the last thing I wanted to do.
But in graduate school I did some teaching in inner-city schools, and I
loved it. I loved listening to students. It was a hoot."
Richard Swasey Lecturer of finance and insurance
Most memorable teaching experience: "After
a corporate training session, I met the students afterward for a drink,
and they greeted me with the poem " Captain! My Captain!' from Dead
Poets Society. I'll never forget it."
Geoffrey Davies Matthews distinguished professor of chemistry
What makes N.U. special: "The students are
wonderful. Some of the students I taught in England were at elite schools,
and they thought they could just sit there and get it all. Northeastern
students are different. You turn the lights on and they're ready to go."
Jerome Tapper Associate academic specialist,
School of Engineering Technology
My students say I'm: "Tough but fair. A student
once asked me, 'What are you, my father?' And I said, 'When you're in my
class, yes.' "
Cabot Gym gets facelift for the new millennium
The Cabot Physical Education Center-the last of
N.U.'s major sports facilities mired in the 1950s-is getting a makeover
for the new millennium.
The $4.5 million renovation project, to be completed
in stages over the course of the next year, will transform the once-dreary,
bare-bones gymnasium, constructed in 1953, into a vibrant, state-of-the-art
athletics center that meets today's NCAA Division I standards, athletics
officials said.
"One of the concerns we've always
had is bringing prospective student-athletes into the Cabot Gym,"
said athletics director Ian McCaw. "The quality of this facility will
demonstrate the high level of commitment we have to our athletic program."
Home to the men's and women's basketball teams
and the women's volleyball team, the new facility will feature renovated
locker rooms; an expanded strength and conditioning center; a refurbished
Cabot Court, including 1,500 chair-back and bleacher seats and a new scoreboard
and sign system; an adjacent hospitality suite; and a newly constructed
academic center for tutoring, advising, and study halls for student-athletes.
The renovation comes on the heels of recent upgrades
to Matthews Arena and Parsons Field, and will help keep Northeastern sports
competitive into the next century, McCaw said.
"This should make us Y2K-compatible,"
he smiled.
For giving information, including naming opportunities,
call the athletics development office at 617-373-2522.
Classroom Building finds a benefactor
Robert Shillman, E'68, president, chief executive officer, and chairman
of Cognex Corporation, has donated $3.2 million to the university and will
have the Classroom Building named for him in a ceremony in October.
The gift is the latest in a long line of donations to the university
by Shillman, who founded Cognex, the world's leading supplier of machine
vision systems, in 1981. In recent years, he has supported the Legacy Scholarship
program for outstanding engineering students and established the Robert
J. Shillman Fellowship in electrical and computer engineering.
"I want to help make Northeastern a magnet for great students,
even more so than it is now," Shillman said in an interview. "And
I want to help brighten the university's image with other successful entrepreneurs
who graduated from here."
Shillman said the multimillion-dollar gifts to Northeastern from fellow
engineering graduates Richard Egan and Roger Marino inspired him to make
his most recent donation. Egan, of EMC Corporation, and Marino, of Golf
Technologies, gave more than $6 million each toward construction of the
science/engineering research center and campus recreation building, respectively,
in the mid-1990s.
Shillman said he is pleased to have his name associated with a building
that, with its red brick and glass facade, stands apart from the traditional
four-story gray brick structures on campus. "It breaks the mold and
is an out-of-the-box type of building," he said. "Those who know
me know I try to do things the same way."
Shillman was named Inc. magazine's High-Tech Entrepreneur of the Year
in 1990, received the Leadership Achievement Award from the Automated Imaging
Association in 1992, and was presented with Northeastern's Outstanding
Alumni Award in 1994.
Take a BOW!
Judith Tick, a music historian who specializes in women's history
and American music, has been named Northeastern's newest Matthews distinguished
professor. The award will support Tick, a faculty member since 1986, in
her scholarly and creative activities for the next two years.
Judith Barr, interim dean of the School of Pharmacy, received
the award for outstanding research podium presentation at the annual meeting
of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research.
Neil Finnegan, chairman of the Northeastern Board of Trustees,
was presented the twenty-third annual Ralph Lowell Distinguished Citizen
Award by the Boy Scouts of America's Boston Minuteman Council for his exemplary
service to the community. The award was presented to Finnegan by President
Freeland.
Campus Footnotes
School of Education opens
A year after officials vowed to improve the performance of Northeastern
graduates on the Massachusetts Educator Certification Tests, the university
has opened a new School of Education in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Led by dean James Fraser, the school will focus on preparing students to
teach in urban middle schools and high schools, officials said. A core
faculty of eight education specialists and twenty jointly appointed faculty
from nine departments in the College of Arts and Sciences, College of Engineering,
Bouvé College of Health Sciences, and the School of Law will comprise
the teaching staff.
Trendy Northeastern
It's official, dude: Northeastern is one hip university. Or so says
a national panel of high school guidance counselors, in a survey appearing
in Kaplan's College Catalog 2000. N.U., which was cited for its "awesome
co-op program," was ranked, among others, alongside Brown University
("Avant-garde open curriculum"), Colorado State University ("The
best ice cream in the U.S."), and Skidmore College ("Artsy and
athletic"). Top honors went to Stanford University, for its "Division
I excellence in sports coupled with Ivy Leaguecaliber academics and
resources."
N.U. Magazine wins awards
Northeastern University Alumni Magazine recently won seven national awards
for editorial and design excellence. In June, the magazine won the top
awards for feature story and illustration use, and finalist awards for
photography and best overall publication, from the Educational Press Association
of America. In May, the magazine won three Gold Medals for photography
and illustration use from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
Winging it for a summer
A juvenile red-tailed hawk-identifiable by its broad wings and chestnut
tail-dropped in on campus over the summer, causing quite a stir among the
local human and rodent populations. Red-tails, the largest of North American
hawks, are most commonly found in open country and woodlands.
New deans named in criminal justice, law
school
Two new academic deans-both with Boston roots-have joined the university
community this fall.
Jack Greene, former director of the Center for Public Policy at Temple
University and a 1973 N.U. graduate, has been appointed dean of the College
of Criminal Justice, and Roger Abrams, former dean of the Rutgers University
School of Law and a former partner in the Boston law firm Foley, Hoag &
Eliot, has been named dean of the law school.
Greene, who succeeds James Fox, has spent the last eight years directing
a multidisciplinary public policy research, teaching, and community service
organization at Temple, located in Philadelphia. He has also served as
director of the university's Public Policy Management Institute for Executive
Level Managers and as chair of undergraduate and graduate programs in the
criminal justice department.
"I'm very excited to be returning to Boston," Greene said
in an interview. "There are not even a dozen universities in the country
who give college status to criminal justice, and that makes Northeastern
an important institution in the field."
Abrams, who succeeds interim dean Daniel Givelber, will also hold the
title of Bertha J. and Frank C. Richardson professor of law.
As Rutgers law dean from 1993 to 1998, Abrams raised more than $49 million
to fund construction of a new law building. He is also credited with hiring
eight new faculty members, reforming the law school curriculum, and entering
into productive partnerships with New Jersey's major law firms.
Abrams said his "abiding commitment to social progress" makes
him a good fit for N.U. "Northeastern's law school doesn't defend
the status quo. It recognizes the need for social justice," he said.
Abrams, who holds a law degree from Harvard, has written more than thirty
articles on labor, sports, and legal education issues. His second book,
The Money Pitch: Baseball Free Agency and Salary Arbitration, will be published
next year.
Moving Up
Jean Eddy, vice provost for enrollment
management, has been promoted to the newly created position of vice president
for enrollment management. She will report to the president and the provost.
Colleen Pantalone, interim executive vice
provost since 1998, has been appointed to the post on a permanent basis.
Janet Hookailo, LA'70, director of university
communications, has assumed the position of interim director of university
relations, succeeding Charles Coffin, who retired in July.
Gilda Barabino, associate
professor of chemical engineering, has been named interim provost for undergraduate
education.
Report: college sport lags in minority
hiring
While sport continues to outpace society at large in providing job opportunities
for minorities, there is still much room for improvement, according to
the Center for the Study of Sport in Society's 1999 Racial and Gender Report
Card.
The tenth annual study, authored by center director Richard Lapchick,
found that the National Basketball Association once again achieved the
best record for diversity among the professional sports leagues, earning
a grade of A-minus on race. The National Football League scored a B-plus
and Major League Baseball got a B. The NBA and NFL were also evaluated
on gender issues, receiving a B and D-plus, respectively.
College sport was significantly behind the pros in the report card,
recording Cs for both race and gender hiring.
"For pro sports, it became a moral imperative to change the racial
and gender makeup, and they've understood that this is a business decision,"
Lapchick said in an interview. "But at the college level, we've only
just started to see scrutiny."
Cy Young makes All-Star Game debut
Though he won more games than any pitcher in baseball history, Cy Young
never had the chance to participate in an All-Star Game. Until this year.
The former Red Sox standout-or more precisely, his oversized, bronze
likeness that resides outside Churchill Hall-was transported to Hynes Convention
Center this summer for All-Star FanFest, an interactive exhibition produced
by Major League Baseball. The six-foot-eight-inch, 1,000-pound statue,
created by Bob Shure, commemorates baseball's first World Series, in 1903,
between the Boston Pilgrims (now the Red Sox) and the Pittsburgh Pirates,
at the old Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds (now part of the Northeastern
campus). The site was also home to baseball's first perfect game of the
twentieth century, hurled by Young on May 5, 1904, against Connie Mack's
Philadelphia Athletics.
To commemorate those events, Northeastern produced a Cy Young postcard
(right) for distribution at the week-long FanFest celebration.
Denton True "Cy" Young won 511 games in his 21-year Major
League career, which included 5 seasons of 30 or more wins. He retired
in 1911, 22 years before the first All-Star Game, in Chicago.
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