Northeastern President Joseph Aoun to serve as Keynote Speaker at Seattle Chamber Regional Leadership Conference

Each year the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce hosts a three-day Regional Leadership Conference with over 250 business governmental labor and environmental leaders outside of Seattle.  Held again this year at the Suncadia Resort, this conference allows leaders to get together to brainstorm and hammer out ways to grapple with regional challenges in education, affordable housing, global health, transportation and other areas.  The keynote speaker serves a key role in framing the discussion and serving as a catalyst for the group.

This year’s conference on October 17-19 will focus on the themes of education, infrastructure and creation of jobs.  Northeastern President Joseph Aoun is a national leader in the higher education area and currently serves as Chair of the American Council of Education.  He will speak on the state of higher education to an audience which is eager to hear new approaches on higher ed.  Due to the national recession, both K-12 and higher education institutions have experienced a severe decline in funding just at the time that the student demand for higher ed programs has increased.  President Aoun will also address why Northeastern University selected the Seattle region as part of its future, and how the university is already getting engaged in a range of regional issues.  One example is STEM learning for K-12.  Tayloe Washburn, the Dean of Northeastern – Seattle, will be moderating a session at the Regional Leadership Conference which intends to identify the top 2-3 actions the business community can take in the STEM area to make progress in student performance and outcomes. 

Contact Dean Washburn at [email protected] if you would like more information on these STEM initiatives.  He has been working with representatives of Boeing, Microsoft, the Center for Inquiry Science, local superintendents, and local and state education experts.  Christos Zahopoulos from Northeastern’s STEM Center has also provided great ideas to this group based on Northeastern’s long-term STEM initiatives with the Boston public schools.  

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