On July 1, Neal Finnegan, BA'61, H'98, finished his term as chairman of Northeastern's Board of Trustees. Here, the new chairman emeritus reflects on his nineteen years of service on the university's top governing board — ten of them spent as chair.
Finnegan with his Presidential Medallion. He is the first person to receive the award, now Northeastern's highest honor.
By Karen Feldscher
What’s your hope for Northeastern’s future?
I hope we stay a high-quality private institution that hasn’t forgotten its roots and that still values applied education. I’d also like to see us become a stronger research institution.
I believe that, while the facilities of Northeastern are probably the most impressive change of the past twenty years, for the next ten we should focus on building the faculty and accelerating the achievements of our students.
We did it deliberately this way; this was not an accident. When we reconceptualized the school on the “smaller, better” model, we thought the quickest way to make the school more attractive was to improve buildings and grounds, and dormitories. And it worked.
Now time, and history, and opportunity call for us to be in the premier ranks of private schools—particularly large, urban private schools.
What most impresses you about Northeastern these days?
Each time I’m on campus, I try to chat with young people. My favorite question is, “Do you go back to your hometown and tell your friends, and neighbors, and high school classmates to come to Northeastern?” The answer is invariably yes. There’s a great enthusiasm for the school among the current student body.
What was your best experience as chairman of the board?
How could I not feel good about working with Presidents [John] Curry, [Richard] Freeland, and now Joseph Aoun, and the accomplishments Northeastern has seen? It’s a remarkable story.
In my interview with the current [New England Association of Schools and Colleges] accreditation team, they were overflowing with compliments for the school. That’s a good feeling, when accomplished outsiders are ready to say that what we’ve achieved at Northeastern is remarkable.
I was most honored when Joseph chose to give me the Presidential Medallion [in May]. That was very special.
What do you consider your most challenging experience on the board?
Clearly the most challenging experience was in the early days, when we had to cut millions and millions of dollars out of the budget and resize the school. At the time, starting in 1989, I was chair of the [Board of Trustees] finance committee, not chairman of the board. But for me there’s very little distinction between the years before I was chair and the years I was chair, which began in 1998. I was doing the same sort of thing the whole time—working to bring the school to a higher standard.
The chairman emeritus, congratulated by trustee Jean Tempel and President Aoun, receives his Presidential Medallion in May.
What were the watershed moments during your years on the board?
During my nineteen years of service, there were two presidential searches.
And I think you’d have to point to the semester change as a watershed. It gave us a chance to rethink the curriculum, and to hire more easily from the East Coast “semester world” the kinds of tenured and tenure-track people we wanted.
The semester change also strengthened co-op, I’m convinced. Fewer, longer stays at co-op jobs have been very popular with employers. As we quest for stronger and stronger co-op job opportunities for students, the fact that we can send smart kids to do longer stints is good for everybody.
As college becomes more expensive and financial aid becomes tougher to get, how does Northeastern keep standing strong behind its mission of access?
Our financial packages are 30 percent of the tuition dollar and heavily weighted toward need. In addition, we have programs like the Torch Scholars program, which makes a total college funding commitment to about fifteen kids each year. They are exceptional kids, and they’ve done very well.
We also have to make sure not only that students can get into Northeastern, but that they complete their education here. If a teenager makes a commitment to a Northeastern education, we owe them the whole shooting match, to get them to graduation. That’s so very important. In the most recent statistics, we’re already tracking an 80 percent graduation rate.
Retention is good for the school because tuition dollars are involved. But, beyond that, you’re doing right by the kids.
Fundraising is a crucial goal for the university. What would you say to alumni to convince them to give to the university?
The young people who have gone to the university for the past ten or fifteen years are going to support Northeastern. We are producing kids who like the school they went to and want to support it, and have been taught the importance of giving back.
I’d say to alumni, of the things that are important to you—maybe it’s giving to help cure a disease that hit your family, or helping a hospital that saved the life of someone close to you—you ought to also include the college that gave you the tools by which you earn a living and make your way in the world.
When people do give significant money, it’s because they feel a sense of mission. They want to fund something they care deeply about. In my case, it’s scholarships. I have funded the Finnegan Scholars for years now. For other people, it’s science. And others endow faculty seats in arenas they think are important.
What has been the major change at Northeastern since Joseph Aoun became president?
What I love about Joseph’s presidency is his emphasis on doing things that are excellent and unique. His philosophy, that we will not continue our trajectory by imitating others, is appropriate.
Joseph has made the commitment to building faculty. Late in Richard Freeland’s administration, decisions were made to improve academics. Richard was well aware that the next step for Northeastern was to build the faculty, and Joseph has taken that further. We will have a better school for it.
Finnegan speaks last Memorial Day at the Veteran Memorial he helped create.
You spearheaded the creation of the university’s Veterans Memorial and have now attended several ceremonies there. Can you talk about what it meant to you to make the memorial happen, and what those ceremonies have been like?
I used to walk by the World War II memorial that hung in Richards Hall. It always struck me how many of our students and graduates had given their lives in that war.
One day I walked by, and the memorial wasn’t there. Someone had thought its relevance was low, and it had been put in the basement. So, being the chairman, I told them to put it back up.
But it got me thinking. I started to ask questions about how many we’d lost in other wars. We’ve been an ROTC school for about as long as anyone could be an ROTC school. It’s important to memorialize those who have given their lives.
So we envisioned the memorial, had a design contest, and built it. When I first saw the finished memorial, I was thrilled. It’s stunning. It’s a contemplative place on campus. Students can sit there and study or think, sort of in the company of those students whose lives were shortened.
This past Memorial Day, we held a small service. One of the people who attended was the mother of Sgt. Robert Pirelli, CJ’01 [a Green Beret who died in Iraq in August 2007].
We’ve been able to give both the Pirellis and the Del Grecos [Felix Del Greco Jr., a member of the class of 2005, died in Iraq in 2004] copies of the dog tags that are part of the memorial. Being able to do that for them meant a lot.
"I know I speak for the entire Northeastern community when I say your vision has made us stronger. Your ideas, leadership, and heart will live on at Northeastern for many years to come. Your character, integrity, and, most important, your thorough devotion to the students of the university have helped guide our progress throughout your chairmanship, and your counsel and perspective—and your friendship—have been invaluable to me."
— President Joseph Aoun to Neal Finnegan at the May 8, 2008, meeting of the National Association of Corporate Directors, New England chapter, where Finnegan was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
In His Own Words
A selection of remarks by Neal F. Finnergan, chairman emeritus
“Northeastern was a place for serious education back in the 1960s. The students understood that education mattered, and they worked hard for it. And we had professors who matched that. . . . Today, we still attract students who are serious about the education they want and faculty who are serious about delivering it. That is who we are.”
— From “A View from the Top," an interview in Northeastern University Alumni Magazine, November 2003
“Last night, we celebrated the tremendous progress that has been made in Northeastern’s last decade, and it was clear to us all that what made it possible was the work of many talented hands and willing hearts pulling together. Each new level of accomplishment has built our confidence and renewed our commitment to pushing onward and upward.”
“We have worked hard and, I hope, worked smart. It has been a year of good governance. I thank you for all you have done to move Northeastern. F. Scott Fitzgerald once noted that what defined America was a ‘willingness of the heart.’ I believe that Northeastern is also a ‘willingness of the heart,’ and that willingness will take us to our rightful place among America’s best universities.”
— At the May 2006 meeting of the Northeastern Corporation
“Three hundred names will be on the wall, [names of people] whose deaths left a hole in the Northeastern family. We gather to remember everyone who once walked this campus and studied in our lecture halls. . . . This is a place where we can contemplate the meaning of duty and sacrifice.”
— At the June 2006 groundbreaking for the university’s Veterans Memorial
“Education at Northeastern today has, as President Aoun often notes, a human face, a feeling of being real. I think this is born of our promise to our students of a Northeastern education; a commitment to the growth and graduation of those students; a commitment to quality faculty, quality experiential education, and its potential to improve the community, the nation, and the world that surround them. Implicit in our model of experiential learning is the personal interaction between the real world and the student.
“Our unique form of education is based in the belief that the intersection of applied education and theoretical research defines the ‘richer experience’ we promise to those who trust their preparation for life to Northeastern University.”
“Our service to Northeastern as a member of the corporation, an overseer, or a trustee is not an end in itself. It is one manifestation of the large number of ways people who love and commit to the school serve us. In fact, we need an army of alumni and friends who celebrate the great things that our school is achieving. . . . The very essence of the people who will share this work and help President Aoun deliver on his aspirations are those who see the incredible value Northeastern brings to the world and who commit in a totally unselfish way—sung or unsung—to help us do it.”
— At the May 2007 meeting of the Northeastern Corporation
“Being awarded the first Presidential Medallion was an unexpected and most appreciated honor. From my days as a student, to mid-career, and later as a business executive, I have valued the education I received at Northeastern University and have tried over the years to give back to my school. Needless to say, all of us who have played a part in the rise of Northeastern’s reputation over the last several decades deserve a share of this recognition. I wear the medal appreciating that I wear it as a representative of all those who worked so hard.”
— Upon receiving the university’s first Presidential Medallion, on May 1, 2008
“At the time of his retirement, Dr. Carl S. Ell, the second president of Northeastern, said, ‘I have hunted for [leaders] with no greater allegiance to anything except family . . . [who] have thought Northeastern, slept Northeastern, dreamed Northeastern, and have made great plans for Northeastern twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and three hundred sixty-five days a year.’
“I cannot ever appropriately thank so many of you who, for the last twenty years, have spent so much of your time as Dr. Ell said: thinking Northeastern, sleeping Northeastern, dreaming Northeastern, and making great plans for Northeastern. We have accomplished much in these last twenty years, and we pass on the Northeastern torch, burning more brightly, we hope, than the one that was passed to us.”
“General George Washington, in his 1783 farewell to his officers, said it the way I want to: ‘With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your later days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable. I cannot—I cannot come to each of you but shall feel obliged if each of you will come and take me by the hand.’
“I hope many or all of you will come and take my hand in farewell and friendship. Thank you, and God bless.”
— At the May 22, 2008, meeting of the Northeastern Corporation, his last as chairman of the board
University highlights during Neal Finnegan's chairmanship
July 1998
Neal Finnegan elected chairman of Northeastern’s Board of Trustees.
September 1999
Northeastern opens West Village A, a residence hall.
September 2000
Two new residence halls, West Village B and C, are completed, as well as a ten-story 980-car parking garage.
August 2002
U.S. News & World Report ranks Northeastern first among U.S. schools that require students to combine classroom learning with real-world experience.
September 2002
Two buildings open: the Behrakis Health Sciences Center, which joins all Bouvé College programs under one roof, and residence hall West Village E.
September 2003
After thirty-seven years on a quarter system, Northeastern moves to a semester calendar, bringing the university in line with other major universities.
February 2004
A $75 million academic investment plan, which will hire a hundred new professors and focus the school on excelling in key areas, is announced, the biggest academic initiative in university history.
July 2004
Northeastern receives a $12.4 million National Science Foundation grant to establish a nanotechnology research center. The College of Computer and Information Science moves into the first four floors of a new high-rise, West Village H, which also includes apartment-style student housing. West Village G, with both student housing and classroom space, opens.
September 2004
The university establishes the School of Technological Entrepreneurship, an independent interdisciplinary school teaching engineering and business skills.
January 2006
Officials announce the completion of the Leadership Campaign, which raised more than $203 million from alumni, friends, faculty, and staff.
June 2006
Joseph E. Aoun is chosen as Northeastern’s seventh president.
August 2006
The Gordon Foundation donates $20 million to Northeastern to support the Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems and establish the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program.
September 2006
Northeastern ranks 45th out of 258 doctoral universities in percentage of applicants accepted, a stunning leap (six years earlier, the university wasn’t even in the top 100). West Village F—containing the new John D. O’Bryant African American Institute, freshman honors housing, and classroom and events space—opens.
October 2006
A three-year Interdisciplinary Faculty Initiative, to hire thirty new associate and full professors whose work crosses traditional academic fields, is announced.
November 2006
The university’s first Veterans Memorial is dedicated.
April 2007
Northeastern and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, announce plans to offer joint undergraduate and graduate degrees.
June 2007
The university approves a new mission statement: “To educate students for a life of fulfillment and accomplishment. To create and translate knowledge to meet global and societal needs.” It also approves a new Academic Plan built around five strategic themes: – experiential learning – interdisciplinary and translational research – intellectual life and creative expression – urban engagement – global opportunities.
July 2007
Northeastern and Hebrew College announce plans for new joint degree programs and shared faculty and library resources.
September 2007
Achieved “most selective” status in undergraduate admissions.
October 2007
President Aoun expands the Interdisciplinary Faculty Initiative to fifty new hires at the tenured level.
January 2008
Undergraduates are pursuing global experiential learning—via international co-op, study abroad, and Dialogue of Civilizations—in eighty-eight cities in forty-six countries around the world.
February 2008
ALERT—Awareness and Localization of Explosives-Related Threats—becomes Northeastern’s thirty-fourth interdisciplinary research center.
May 2008
The U.S. National Security Agency recognizes Northeastern as a Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Research as well as Information Assurance Education.
July 2008
Sy Sternberg assumes chairmanship of the Board of Trustees; Neal Finnegan named chairman emeritus.