New Academic Initiative
Provost Ahmed Abdelal and chief of staff/chief planning officer Mark Putnam cochair the steering committee for Northeastern’s next academic plan, which will explore themes related to urban and global dimensions; experiential learning; research; and creative, aesthetic, and ethical dimensions. Here, they talk about the plan and how alumni can join in its creation.

By Karen Feldscher

Q. Why is it important to have a new academic plan right now?

Abdelal: Northeastern has been changing steadily over the last ten to fifteen years, and the last academic plan was done almost ten years ago. We changed from a nonresidential campus to a residential campus. We achieved higher recognition on the basis of our faculty’s accomplishments and the excellence of our academic programs. We achieved higher student selectivity. In a sense, we moved from one level to the next higher level.

It’s important every several years to reflect on what should be done next to continue to advance. Reaching for excellence is an ongoing process that does not have an endpoint.

Q. How will this academic plan be different from those of the past?

Putnam: There are two archetypes in planning. One is a plan established toward specific metrics or measurements. The other focuses on mission, themes, and ideas.

The reality is, most plans are some kind of hybrid. Our previous plan was oriented a bit more toward the key performance-indicator approach, with metrics regarding student quality, student success, financial success, and rankings. It did, though, have a conceptual framework: the aspiration about Northeastern being a national research university that is student- centered, practice-oriented, and urban.

Our new plan will be much more about ideas, themes, concepts, and mission. It will address the questions “What are we going to dream about?” “What will we pursue?”

One of the services that planning can provide for a university is to press people to move beyond perceptions of limitations and begin to dream about things that never would have been imagined a few years before.

Q. What kinds of recommendations can we expect from the planning process?

Abdelal: We don’t expect an action plan. We expect analytical statements of goals and descriptions of approaches for realizing these goals. In the next phase of the process, after we develop the strategic plan, we will take stock of where we are and develop an implementation plan.

Q. Can alumni be involved in the process?

Putnam: Definitely. The website that’s at <www.northeastern.edu/planning/ index.html> is a place for interaction. We’re hoping to get a lot of people, including alumni, to participate.

Abdelal: Alumni can give us lots of ideas regarding cooperative and experiential education, because they have experienced these models. They can also help us think of new ways to establish partnerships—with industry, or research hospitals, or the urban community—to respond to different questions or challenges.

Q. What is the timeline for the academic planning process?

Putnam: The plan is on a fast track. We expect it to be reviewed and approved enthusiastically by the Board of Trustees in June. After that, there will be an ongoing implementation effort that has yet to be defined. We’re imagining some kind of overarching group that will look at all the stuff being developed and then ask, “What are the technology implications? The enrollment implications? Space implications? Financial implications?” I imagine there will also be groups working on specific initiatives.

Q. Will the planning process take into account Northeastern’s competition?

Abdelal: Yes. We are taking stock of a number of things. One is where we are in New England, but we are also looking at our competition nationally and internationally. Part of the strategic process is to define the niches where we think we have a competitive advantage, and then build these further. No institution can do everything. As a large institution, we do have the capacity to do a great many things—still, we need to define with clarity where we are headed.

Q. Northeastern wants to strengthen its innovation and distinctiveness. What is it already doing that's "distinctive"?

Putnam: The pattern of striking partnerships. It's evident in the engineering research centers. In Davenport Commons and in SquashBusters, where we partnered with city leaders. In the ways we partner with health-care institutions and people in the communities around us.

Of all the institutions, a university has a unique convening power—it can create oppurtunities for dialogue and collaboration. And Northeastern seems to have a culture that embraces this kind of activity, that nurtures and supports it.

In my view, this is a tremendous oppurtunity going forward, and we need to find ways of developing it further.