Skip to content
GIVING DAY is April 11! Starting now, you can support CSSH students and programs with a $5+ gift to any of our funds.
Apply
Stories

Northeastern hosts top higher ed official

CSSH students participate in round table discussion.

North­eastern Uni­ver­sity con­vened a round­table on higher edu­ca­tion on Thursday after­noon with U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion Under Sec­re­tary Ted Mitchell and local uni­ver­sity leaders.

Mitchell over­sees higher edu­ca­tion in the U.S. and the fed­eral stu­dent aid pro­gram. Stephen W. Director, Northeastern’s provost and senior vice pres­i­dent for aca­d­emic affairs, hosted the meeting and dis­cussed topics including the fed­eral Perkins loan pro­gram, pro­viding more flex­i­bility in the work study pro­gram to allow stu­dents to use those funds for co-​​op, and the university’s recent survey on Gen­er­a­tion Z.

Fol­lowing the round­table, in a meeting with North­eastern stu­dents and young alumni, Mitchell noted the Obama administration’s three pri­or­i­ties in higher edu­ca­tion: access, afford­ability, and outcomes.

Mitchell talked with stu­dents and alumni about finan­cial aid and the Obama administration’s forth­coming col­lege rat­ings system, intended to raise the bar on higher edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions’ public account­ability and pro­vide infor­ma­tion to fam­i­lies making col­lege deci­sions. But the con­ver­sa­tion largely focused on Northeastern’s sig­na­ture co-​​op pro­gram, the cor­ner­stone of the university’s expe­ri­en­tial learning model. North­eastern placed stu­dents in 9,823 co-​​ops across all seven con­ti­nents in 2013–2014, and the number of global co-​​ops has increased 407 per­cent since 2006–2007.

Stu­dents and alumni con­sis­tently praised the co-​​op program—not only how it influ­enced their deci­sion to attend North­eastern, but the impact it has since had on their col­lege expe­ri­ence. Fourth-​​year stu­dent Marvin McMoore,SSH’15, explained how his co-​​ops and other pro­fes­sional expe­ri­ences have trans­lated to his class­work. McMoore, a polit­ical sci­ence major, is the pres­i­dent of the Col­lege Democ­rats of Mass­a­chu­setts and has worked on numerous polit­ical cam­paigns and activ­i­ties throughout his North­eastern experience.

Working on polit­ical cam­paigns def­i­nitely added to my aca­d­e­mics and how I approach it,” he said.

Third-​​year stu­dent Ana Tar­betsky, a soci­ology major who is pur­suing minors in Spanish, lin­guis­tics, and psy­chology, noted that finan­cial aid assis­tance and her inter­na­tional expe­ri­ences at North­eastern are inter­twined. Finan­cial aid, she said, played an impor­tant role in her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the university’s Dia­logue of Civ­i­liza­tions pro­gram as well as her upcoming co-​​op at the Uni­ver­sity of Sydney in Australia.

Without the finan­cial aid, there’s no way I would’ve had the inter­na­tional expe­ri­ence, and that’s some­thing that’s really shaped my life because I’d like to do grad­uate school in Sydney,” she said.

Group mem­bers also cred­ited Northeastern’s career ser­vices office and their co-​​op advisers for preparing them well for their pro­fes­sional expe­ri­ences. “It’s amazing how much it pre­pares you not just for co-​​op but also get­ting a job long term,” said Jordan Lieberman, DMSB/SSH’15, who noted that he’s had a pro­fes­sional resume since his freshman year.

After the meeting, Mitchell said he was impressed with the stu­dents and young alumni’s ability talk about co-​​op and its con­nec­tion to their work and the real world.

North­eastern has con­tributed to their devel­op­ment in ways that they can mark and mea­sure,” Mitchell said. He added, “What I learned from (the stu­dents) is that they are engaged with the world.”

-By Greg St. Martin

More Stories

Photo of the Capitol Building at night

High stakes for politics, SCOTUS in 2018

01.04.2018
Photo of the crashed truck that was used in the October 31st attack in Manhattan.

Weaponizing Language: How the meaning of “allahu akbar” has been distorted

11.08.2017
Northeastern logo

Why I love studying Spanish

05.29.20
Uncategorized