High-tech MBA named nation's best
For years Daniel McCarthy believed that Northeastern's
high-tech MBA program was the best in the country. Now the program's codirector
has the ranking to prove it.
Northeastern was rated first in the nation in
Computerworld's annual "Top Techno MBA Survey," beating out such
luminaries as MIT, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania. The poll
identified the twenty-five schools that "do the best job of preparing
students to become tomorrow's technology leaders."
"I know how good we are," McCarthy said
in an interview. "But the ranking is still surprising because sometimes
it takes an awful long time to develop a reputation and get the word out."
The study by Computerworld, a newspaper and information
services company, asked 1,000 campus recruiters to rate the top programs.
The top sixty-three schools cited were then surveyed about curriculum,
student-to-faculty ratio, admission requirements, job placement, and any
special features. The end result was Northeastern's number-one position.
"This is truly a special program, and the
epitome of practice-oriented education for our local high-tech community,"
said Marc Meyer, the program's other codirector. "It's a high-impact
program for corporations."
Meyer said the high-technology MBA is designed
for fast-track managers in the product and services industries, and focuses
on professionals who work full time and use the program to achieve advancement
in their companies and industries.
"This program takes a very practical approach,
and that's what makes it stand out," said Steven Hawes, an Internet
project manager at Fidelity Investments and a student in the program.
Hawes said the program allows students to address
and solve real-world workplace challenges while earning an MBA. Already
the program has helped him with two major projects at Fidelity.
"So not only are you getting the classic
MBA skills," Hawes said, "but they're augmented with very practical
exercises for the technical environment."
On graduation, more than half of Northeastern
high-tech MBA students receive promotions or change positions, earning
on average a twenty-six percent salary increase over two years.
"Our survey reveals that while the better-known
business schools excel at training MBAs, they've stuck to the business
basics and haven't moved rapidly into technology programs," Computerworld
editor in chief Maryfran Johnson said in a statement.
Computerworld's Top 10 Techno-MBA Schools
1. NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
2. University of Texas at Austin
3. University of Maryland, College Park
4. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
5. University of California, Irvine
6. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
7. Purdue University
8. Southwest Missouri State University
9. Carnegie Mellon University
10. University of Florida, Gainesville
Freeland prods N.U. to be "best in
class"
Faculty and staff must embark on an institution-wide
effort to transform Northeastern into a visionary university whose reputation
and leadership in higher education reach a new excellence, President Freeland
said during his annual university address last month.
"We must be the best in our class,"
Freeland said. "If we aspire to play at another level, in a tougher
league, we need to work harder and better and smarter to succeed."
The president detailed what he called the imperatives
of Northeastern's transformation: improving its standing in national rankings
and becoming the country's premier practice-oriented institution.
Freeland said the university's competitive position
could be enhanced by securing a better placement in the U.S. News &
World Report annual four-tier ranking system.
By asserting its national leadership in practice-oriented
education, the president said, Northeastern assumes a responsibility to
its students and to all those who "might flourish in the form of education
that [Northeastern is] defining."
"We stand for important things at Northeastern,"
he said. "We stand for opportunity-especially the opportunity of young
people from all backgrounds to obtain an outstanding education. We stand
for excellence in our professional work, as teachers and scholars. We stand
for engagement with the urban community. And above all, we stand for an
educational idea of great significance-the principle that many students
will develop best in an educational environment that includes both classroom
study and practical experience, and that provides them with liberal learning
as well as professional preparation."
Move to semester calendar considered
The quirky quarter academic calendar, which has
gone the way of the brontosaurus in higher education circles, may have
seen its final days at Northeastern as well. President Freeland last month
endorsed the change to a semester-based system, beginning in either 2001
or 2002.
Freeland's plan, which he hopes to present to
the Board of Trustees next month, calls for dividing the academic year
into two sixteen-week semesters plus a twelve- to fourteen-week summer
session divided into two terms of equal length. Most students would attend
classes for seven full semesters plus two summer sessions and take three
six-month co-ops during their five-year academic careers.
"I've concluded that this is the right plan
for Northeastern at this time," Freeland said. "It meshes perfectly
with our agenda" of becoming the premier practice-oriented university
in the country.
Freeland said the semester model at Northeastern
would make courses stronger learning experiences for students; be more
conducive to the preferred six-month co-op placement; enhance faculty research
efforts; reduce the strains and disruptions of student life imposed by
the quarter system; and simplify administrative procedures.
A change in the academic calendar has been discussed
off and on for the past decade. In 1990, the Faculty Senate and faculty
at large recommended to former president John Curry that the university
adopt a trimester calendar, breaking the academic year into three equal
sessions. Curry postponed a decision, citing financial and other concerns.
Five years later, the Senate repeated its call for a trimester calendar,
but once again no action was taken.
"The reasons we didn't do it in the past
no longer exist," Freeland said. "There will never be a better
moment than this [to make the change]."
Campus Footnotes
Animal attraction
President Freeland has been named the 1999 Humane
Educator of the Year by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals and its education affiliate, the American Humane Education
Society. Freeland, who was presented the award last month at the group's
"Reasons to Care" dinner, was cited for his support of "two
of the three pillars upon which humane societies depend: education and
principled citizenship."
Medallion winners
Amin Khoury, MBA'89, and Rhondella Richardson,
AS'90, have been named winners of the inaugural Medallion Award for outstanding
achievement by recent alumni. Khoury, chairman of the board of B/E Aerospace,
and Richardson, a reporter for WCVB-TV in Boston, were honored October
15 in a ceremony at the Egan Research Center. Also at the event, Deborah
McConchie, BA'75, past president of the Alumni Association, was named winner
of the 1999 W. Erwin Story Citation for alumni volunteerism.
Food for thought
The folks in food services have cooked up a new
recipe for success in residence hall dining. Called the Marketplace at
Stetson East, the newly refurbished cafeteria features seven food kiosks
serving up selections ranging from homemade soups and garden-fresh salads
to rotisserie chicken and freshly cooked pasta. And the critics have noticed.
The National Association of College Auxiliary Services honored the Marketplace
with its 1999 Innovation Achievement Award, and student business is up,
to the tune of 1,000 meals a week.
Red and Black gets a touch of Brown
Steven Calvert, former vice president for alumni
relations at Brown University, began work last month as Northeastern's
new executive director of alumni relations. He succeeds Eliza Dame, who
held the post from 199798.
Calvert, who holds a Ph.D. from Rutgers University,
has been helping universities connect with their graduates since 1976.
Before Brown, he worked in the alumni relations field at Dartmouth College
and Carnegie Mellon University. In his two years at Brown, Calvert is credited
with generating more than $600,000 in new funds for programs, starting
up Internet-based career networking, and implementing new outreach programs
for alumni clubs.
A COOL idea from co-op
The hottest thing going in co-op these days is
COOL.
The new Web-based initiative, which stands for
Co-op Opportunities On-Line, gives students access to more than 7,600 co-op
listings at the click of a mouse. The service is one of the first outgrowths
of President Freeland's Call to Action campaign to strengthen co-op education.
"In the past, we weren't leveraging technology
the best we could," explained interim co-op dean Robert Tillman. "We
did not have a systematic way to make information available to students
with respect to computer technology."
The co-op division also recently unveiled Career
Link, an on-line career placement service for soon-to-be graduates and
alumni. You can find it at <www.dac.neu.edu/coop.careerservices>.
Put up a parking lot
In a move heralded as the next step in the economic
revitalization of lower Roxbury, Northeastern officials, government leaders,
project developers, and community residents last month celebrated the groundbreaking
of a new university-owned parking garage next to the Renaissance Park building.
The $23 million endeavor, being developed in cooperation
with Columbia Plaza Associates, marks the second phase of the Parcel 18
development project on land long overlooked by city and business interests.
"This is a great day for Northeastern University,"
President Freeland said. "It's a day rich in significance for both
the community of lower Roxbury and the very important partnership and relationship
between Northeastern and lower Roxbury."
Slated to be finished next fall, the 980-car,
ten-story garage will provide parking for employees and visitors of Renaissance
Park, university students, faculty and staff, and any future development
on Parcel 18.
The project furthers N.U.'s commitment to revamp
the former Registry of Motor Vehicles site and three adjacent parcels,
which the university purchased for $17 million in 1997.
"A project that was on the verge of becoming
a symbol of another failed hope, another broken promise, has become a project
symbolizing the future and a symbol of what can be accomplished,"
Freeland said.
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