Northeastern University

Northeastern University (NU or NEU) is a private research university with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1898, it was founded by the Boston Young Men's Christian Association as an all-male institute before being incorporated as Northeastern College in 1916, gaining university status in 1922. With more than 38,000 students, Northeastern is the largest university in Massachusetts by enrollment.

Northeastern is a large, highly residential university which comprises nine schools, including the Northeastern University School of Law. The university's main campus in Boston is located within the center of the city along Huntington Avenue and Columbus Avenue near the Fenway–Kenmore and Roxbury neighborhoods. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs, and most undergraduates participate in a cooperative education program. Northeastern is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education and is a member of the Boston Consortium for Higher Education. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".

Northeastern maintains satellite campuses in Charlotte, North Carolina; Seattle, Washington; San Jose, California; Oakland, California; Portland, Maine; Burlington, Massachusetts; and Toronto and Vancouver in Canada. In 2019, it purchased the New College of the Humanities, establishing an additional campus in London, England. The university's sports teams, the Northeastern Huskies, compete in NCAA Division I as members of the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) in 18 varsity sports. The men's and women's hockey teams compete in Hockey East, while the men's and women's rowing teams compete in the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (EARC) and Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges (EAWRC), respectively.

Early development
In May 1896, directors of the Boston Young Men's Christian Association, the first in the U.S., established an Evening Institute for Younger Men, to merge, coordinate and improve its classes that had evolved over the past 40 years. Included among roughly 30 courses offered were algebra, bookkeeping, literature, French, German, Latin, geography, electricity, music, penmanship and physiology. In addition, a banjo club, camera club, orchestra, and weekly parliamentary debates and discussions were promoted. A good education for "any young man of moral character" with a YMCA membership was promised. Located in a new headquarters building at the corner of Boylston and Berkeley streets in Boston, the institute held its first classes in 1898. After a fire, a new YMCA building was constructed on Huntington Avenue in 1913.

The School of Law was also formally established in 1898 with the assistance of an advisory committee, consisting of James Barr Ames, dean of the Harvard Law School; Samuel Bennett, dean of the Boston University School of Law; and Judge James R. Dunbar. In 1903, the first Automobile Engineering School in the country was established, followed by a Polytechnic School in 1904 and a School of Commerce and Finance in 1907. Day classes began in 1909. In 1916, a bill was introduced into the Massachusetts Legislature to incorporate the institute as Northeastern College. After considerable debate and investigation, it was passed in March 1916.

In 1909, the Polytechnic School began offering co-operative engineering courses to eight students. A four-year daytime program had been established consisting of alternating single weeks of classroom instruction and practical work experience with mostly railroad companies that agreed to accept student workers. In 1920, the Co-operative School of Engineering, which later became the College of Engineering, was first authorized to grant degrees in civil, chemical, electrical and mechanical engineering. The cooperative program, the second of its kind in the U.S. after one in Cincinnati, Ohio, was eventually adopted by all departments.

On March 30, 1917, veteran educator Frank Palmer Speare, who had served as director of the institute, was inaugurated as the first president of the newly incorporated Northeastern College. Five years later the college changed its name to Northeastern University to better reflect the increasing depth of its instruction. In March 1923, the university secured general (A.B. and B.S.) degree-granting power from the Legislature, with the exception of the medical and dental degrees.

The College of Liberal Arts was added in 1935. Two years later the Northeastern University Corporation was established, with a board of trustees composed of 31 university members and 8 from the YMCA. Following World War II, Northeastern began admitting women. In 1948, Northeastern separated itself completely from the YMCA. By 1959, when Carl Ell who had expanded the university stepped down as president, Northeastern had a local identity as an independent technical university serving a commuter and adult population.

That reputation began changing during the presidency of Asa S. Knowles, from 1959 to 1975. Facing a postwar educational boom, the university broadened undergraduate offerings, increased graduate offerings, modernized administrative and faculty structures, created a Faculty Senate, launched its first-ever capital campaign, reorganized and expanded adult and continuing education, and increased the number of colleges. The university created the College of Education (1953), University College (1960), now called the College of Professional Studies, and the colleges of Pharmacy and Nursing (1964), which both later merged into the Bouvé College of Health Sciences. The creation of the College of Criminal Justice (1967) followed, and then the Khoury College of Computer Sciences (1982), the first college in the United States dedicated to the field of computer science.

Between 1959 and 1975, Northeastern's student population not only grew considerably larger, but also more diverse. At the beginning of this period, most of the student body was composed of white males from New England, the majority of whom came from the Boston-area public schools and primarily studied business or engineering. By 1974–75, women accounted for 33 percent of the nearly 14,000 undergraduates students, while 5 percent were black. Over 900 students came from different foreign countries. Of the graduating class of 2,238, 513 were in Liberal Arts, 462 in Engineering, 389 in Business, 227 in Pharmacy and Allied Health, and the remainder were roughly divided among Education, Boston-Bouvé, Nursing and Criminal Justice.

To attract more women, the university refurbished existing facilities, constructed new women's dormitories and encouraged their participation in all programs. The merger with Boston-Bouvé, a women's college dedicated to physical health, and the creation of the College of Nursing, traditionally a female profession, also contributed to the increase. Though there was an explicit nondiscrimination policy on the books, throughout its history Northeastern had only a handful of black students. In the early 1960s, with financial assistance from the Ford Foundation in New York in the form of scholarships and co-ops to black high school students, Northeastern began actively recruiting black students. By 1975, black student-led organizations included the Afro-photo Society, Student Grill, Health Careers Club, The Onyx (a black student newspaper), Muhindi Literary Guild, the Outing Club, Black Engineering Society, and the first recognized black fraternity at the university, the Omicron Chapter of Iota Phi Theta. In addition, the number of foreign students increased from 170 in the 1950s and 1960s to 960 by 1974–75.

Recent history
By the early 1980s, under President Kenneth G. Ryder, the one-time night commuter school had grown into one of the largest private universities in the nation at around 55,000 students. In 1990, the first class with more live-on campus rather than commuter students was graduated. After Ryder's retirement in 1989, the university adopted a slow and more thoughtful approach to change. Following an economic downturn, a 1991 trustee committee report described the situation as "life threatening to Northeastern," warning of a $17 million budget gap with no funding mechanisms to cover it. That year President John A. Curry formulated a new strategy of transforming Northeastern into a "smaller, leaner, better place to work and study," describing unacceptable compromises in the quality and reputation of the university that had been made in the quest for more students. Staff were terminated and admissions targets were reduced, with applicant numbers beginning to rise and attrition rates fall by the end of Curry's tenure.

When Curry left office in 1996, the university population had been systematically reduced to about 25,000. Incoming President Richard M. Freeland decided to focus on recruiting the type of students who were already graduating as the school's prime demographic. Freeland focused on improving academics and restructuring the administration with a goal of "creating the country's premier program of practice oriented education". In the early 1990s, the university began a $485 million construction program that included residence halls, academic and research facilities, and athletic centers. During the university's transition, Freeland reorganized the co-operative education system, decentralizing it into a department based system to allow better integration of classroom learning with workplace experience. Full-time degree programs shifted from a four-quarter system to two traditional semesters and two summer "minimesters," allowing students to both delve more deeply into their academic courses and have longer and more substantive co-op placements, forcing departments to redesign aging programs to fit the longer format. Freeland also created a marketing department, uncommon for universities at the time, and expanded the university advancement office, while setting an ambitious $200 million fundraising target with the goal of reducing dependency on tuition.

Between 1995 and 2007, average SAT exam scores increased more than 200 points, retention rates rose dramatically, and applications doubled. In 1998, Freeland set an admissions target of 2,800 freshman per year, allowing for adequate tuition income without compromising on education. Throughout the transformation, his oft-repeated goal was to crack the top 100 of the U.S. News & World Report's rankings of America's best universities. With this accomplished by 2005, the transformation goal from commuting school to nationally recognized research university was complete. Freeland stepped down on August 15, 2006, and was followed by President Joseph E. Aoun, a former dean at the University of Southern California.

As part of a five-year, $75 million Academic Investment Plan that ran from 2004 to 2009, the university concentrated on undergraduate education, core graduate professional programs, and centers of research excellence. Faculty was originally to be bolstered by 100 new tenured and tenure-track professors, later expanded to include 300 additional tenure and tenure-track faculty in interdisciplinary fields. Aoun also placed more emphasis on improving community relations by reaching out to leaders of the neighborhoods surrounding the university. In addition, Aoun created more academic partnerships with other institutions in the Boston area, including Tufts University, Hebrew College and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.

During this period, Northeastern rapidly advanced in national rankings. It placed 42nd in the 2014–15 edition of U.S. News & World Report's best colleges and universities rankings, a 7 position jump from 2013–14 and a 27 place gain since 2010–11. Critics have argued that Northeastern's rise in the rankings shows that the university has "cracked the code" to academic rankings, while others suggested it figured out how to "game the system." The positive feedback effect of its placement, in turn, allowed the institution to significantly increase its endowment, admit a more-competitive student body, hire new faculty, add to its campuses and expand its flagship co-op program.

The Empower Campaign was launched in May 2013 for student support, faculty advancement/expansion, innovation in education and research. Its goal was to raise $1 billion by 2017, with half of that being from philanthropic support and the other half from industry and government partnerships. The goal was raised to $1.25 billion in 2015. The campaign was inspired by Richard D'Amore and Alan McKim's $60 million donation to the university's business school in 2012. In October 2017, Northeastern revealed that the final total of the Empower campaign was $1.4 billion. More than 100,000 individuals and over 3,800 organizations donated to Empower, from 110 countries.

In 2021, the Hillel at Northeastern University, which serves as the school's Jewish student center, experienced an incident of antisemitic vandalism: a sacred ornament known as a mezuzah was torn down from the building's rear entrance. The mezuzah was torn down following the invitation by Hillel of reformed neo-Nazi TM Garret, a human rights advocate who has dedicated his work to anti-racism and anti-violence programs. The Hillel at Northeastern University felt Garret was "an ally of the Jewish people". University president Joseph Aoun condemned the act in an email sent to the school community. A security camera video was taken of the individual performing the vandalism, but no suspect was ever caught.

Northeastern University's Experiential Technologies lab contains, among others, virtual reality equipment. On September 12, 2022, police responded to an incident at the lab, claiming that a pressurized case, accompanied by a note that critiqued the school and its relationship with VR developers, had exploded. The explosion injured Jason Duhaime, a 45-year-old university employee. Police became skeptical after finding several inconsistencies in Duhaime's testimony, such as a lack of physical evidence of an explosion. Additionally, it was discovered that the note attached to the explosive device was composed on Duhaime's computer only a day earlier. Although a second device of similar construction was found elsewhere on campus, the threat was neutralized; Northeastern resumed normal academic activities the next day. The following month, federal prosecutors determined that Jason Duhaime, the Northeastern employee who claimed to be the sole witness of the explosion and was seemingly injured by it, had concocted the event as a hoax. Duhaime was subsequently charged with a fine of $250,000 and a five year in prison sentence. He was also fired from his position within the university.

In May 2024 it was announced that Marymount Manhattan College would merge with Northeastern University, which was to be renamed Northeastern University-New York City. The merger would not be finalized until it received regulatory approval, which could take up to two years.

Presidents
Presidents of Northeastern University:
 * Frank Palmer Speare (1898–1940)
 * Carl Stephens Ell (1940–1959)
 * Asa S. Knowles (1959–1975)
 * Kenneth G. Ryder (1975–1989)
 * John A. Curry (1989–1996)
 * Richard M. Freeland (1996–2006)
 * Joseph E. Aoun (2006–present)

Academics
Northeastern offers 291 undergraduate majors; 187 of these are combined majors, such as Business Administration/Communication Studies. At the graduate level, there are 36 PhD programs and 264 other graduate programs. Northeastern had 3,028 faculty in Fall 2021. Academics at Northeastern is grounded in a liberal arts education and the integration of classroom studies with experiential learning opportunities, including cooperative education, student research, service learning, and global experience, including study abroad and international co-op. The university's cooperative education program places nearly 10,000 students annually in full-time, paid professional positions with almost 3,000 co-op employers in Boston and around the world.

Northeastern University is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.

Colleges and schools
Northeastern University has eight degree-granting colleges:


 * College of Arts, Media and Design
 * Khoury College of Computer Sciences
 * College of Engineering
 * Bouvé College of Health Sciences
 * College of Professional Studies
 * College of Science
 * College of Social Sciences and Humanities
 * Mills College at Northeastern University (since 2023)

These colleges house schools and departments. There are also two separate schools, not housed within the other colleges:
 * D'Amore-McKim School of Business
 * Northeastern University School of Law

Honors Program
The University Honors Program selects students from the regular applicant pool with no separate application and represent the applicants with the highest GPA and SAT/ACT scores that year. The program includes specialty work in a major field through college-specific choices including specialized advanced honors seminars and an independent research project. Students in the Honors Program exclusively can live in a Living-Learning Community housed in West Villages C and F. 2017 also marked the beginning of the Honors Discovery course and the introduction of the Student Assessed Integrated Learning (SAIL) app.

Co-op/internship program
Launched in 1909, Northeastern has one of the largest and oldest cooperative education (co-op) programs in the world. In the co-op program, students alternate periods of academic study with periods of professional employment (usually paid) related to their major. Students can choose to complete one or two co-op experiences to graduate in four years, or they can choose to complete three co-ops to graduate in five years. Students on co-op do not pay tuition and students not living on campus do not pay room and board. The co-op program typically begins the spring of the second year or fall of the third year (after a more traditional program for the first semesters on campus). Students usually take anywhere between one and three with 96% participating in one and 78% participating in two or more.

50% of Northeastern students receive a job offer from a previous co-op employer.

Study abroad
Northeastern has semester-long study abroad programs with placements in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and South America. Some participating schools include: University of Cambridge and London School of Economics, England; University of Edinburgh, Scotland; Reims Management School, France; European School of Business, Germany; University of Cape Town, South Africa; University of Auckland, New Zealand; Swinburne University of Technology, Australia; Obirin University, Japan; American College of Thessaloniki, Greece and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile and also Antarctica.

Northeastern's International Business program is a member of the International Partnership of Business Schools. Through this program International Business students have the opportunity to be awarded a dual-degree from Northeastern as well as from a sister school abroad.

Research
The university provides undergraduate students with an opportunity to engage in research through the Center for Experiential Education, CenSSIS Research Experience for Undergraduates, Honors Research, Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program, and Provost's Office research grants. In FY 2007, annual external research funding exceeded $78 million. In FY 2009–10, the research funding is close to $82 million. In 2002, Northeastern's Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems was designated an NSF Engineering Research Center. In 2004, Northeastern was one of six institutions selected by the National Science Foundation as a center for research in nanotechnology. In 2010, Northeastern was granted $12 million by an alum for a Homeland security research facility, to be named the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security, after its chief benefactor.

Undergraduate admissions
For undergraduate students, Northeastern's 2023 acceptance rate was 5.6%. Of the record-large pool of 96,327 applicants, only ~5,389 were admitted. The sharp rise in applications and drop in admission is attributed to an over enrollment issue that the admission office attempted to fix. 2020 acceptance rate was 18.1%. For the Class of 2024, Northeastern received 64,459 applications, with 13,199 students accepted. In 2018, the record number of applications led to a drop in acceptance rate, eight percentage points lower than the previous year. Additionally, Northeastern was one of the top ten most applied to colleges in 2018.

For the Class of 2022 (enrolling fall 2018), Northeastern received 62,272 applications, accepted 12,042 (19%), and enrolled 2,746. For the freshmen who enrolled, the middle 50% range of SAT scores was 670–750 for reading and writing, 690–790 for math, while the middle 50% range ACT composite range was 32–34.

Of those who applied in 2016, 9,500 were international students, up from 1,128 international applicants in 2006. Of those who enrolled, 20% were international students. In the Power of International Education's 2017 Open Doors report, Northeastern was ranked as the fourth-highest institution in the United States to host international students.

The number of international students totals over 12,000 representing 138 different nations and over half of the student body. The number of international students at Northeastern has steadily increased by about 1,000 students every year since 2008.

Rankings
In the 2024 edition of U.S. News & World Report rankings, Northeastern was tied for 53rd in the National Universities category. The 2021 edition of U.S. News & World Report ranked Northeastern 49th in its annual ranking of national universities. In 2014, College Prowler gave Northeastern an "A+" rating for the quality of classes, professors, and overall academic environment. A 2008 Reader's Digest survey ranked NU as the second safest school in the United States after Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.

Specialty rankings

 * 1st in "Best Co-ops/Internships" (U.S. News & World Report) (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023)
 * 1st in "Best Schools for Internships" (Princeton Review) (2017, 2018)
 * 2nd in "Best Graduate Psychology Programs" (2018)
 * 2nd in "Best Physician Assistant Programs" (2018)
 * 3rd in "Best Nursing-Anesthesia Programs" (2018)
 * 3rd in "Best Career Services" (Princeton Review) (2016, 2017, 2018)
 * 4th in "Top 25 Entrepreneurship: Ugrad" (Princeton Review) (2017, 2018)
 * 4th in "Best Health Care Law Programs" (2018)
 * 6th in "Most Innovative Schools" (U.S. News & World Report) (2018) (up from 7th in 2017)
 * 7th in "The Top 25 B.A. Theatre Programs for 2018–19" (OnStage Blog)
 * 9th in "Best Undergraduate International Business Programs" (U.S. News & World Report) (2018)

Campus
Northeastern University's main campus is located on 73 acre mostly along Huntington Avenue and Columbus Avenue in an area known as the Fenway Cultural District, part of Boston's Fenway and Roxbury neighborhood, near the Museum of Fine Arts, Symphony Hall, New England Conservatory, and Christian Science Center.

In 2019, the campus was officially designated as an arboretum by ArbNet, making it the only campus in Boston to receive the designation.

The first baseball World Series took place on the Huntington Avenue Grounds, now part of the campus. The site is commemorated in front of Churchill Hall by a statue of Cy Young.

In 2014, Northeastern officially launched a Public Art Initiative to place a series of murals and other art around the Boston campus. Among those whose work has been commissioned are French artist Jef Aérosol, Houston-born artist Daniel Anguilu, Los Angeles-based El Mac and Charleston, South Carolina-born artist Shepard Fairey, known for his 2008 Barack Obama "Hope" poster.

Campus development
During the Great Depression in the 1930s, as enrollment grew to over 4,600 students, President Frank Palmer Speare announced that Northeastern would build a new campus. Coolidge Shepley Bulfinch and Abbott, a Boston-based architectural firm, was selected to design the campus near the Huntington Avenue YMCA building that continued to house library and classroom spaces. Richards Hall, which housed classrooms, laboratories and administrative offices, was the first building completed in October 1938. Its light gray, glazed brick exterior with vertical strips of windows was replicated in other buildings of what later became known as the 1944 master plan. A mix of Beaux-Arts and Bauhaus architectural styles defined by stripped-down classicism and open courtyards that resembled that of Massachusetts Institute of Technology across the Charles River. In a June 14, 1934 article, the Boston Evening Transcript described the campus design as "modernistic classical."

In 1961, under President Asa Knowles, the university purchased a 7-acre red brick industrial complex once owned by the United Drug Company to build athletic facilities. Three of the buildings facing Forsyth Street were demolished, but due to a need for more office and lab space, the remaining buildings were divided into four sections now called Lake Hall, Holmes Hall, Nightingale Hall and Meserve Hall.

During the last few years, major developments include Northeastern becoming recognized as an arboretum, opening a $225 million research and laboratory complex known as the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex (ISEC), launching the Institute for Experiential Artificial Intelligence with a $50 million donation, as well as renaming the College of Computer and Information Science to the Khoury College of Computer Sciences with another $50 million donation from Amin Khoury.

EXP, another large research facility created to support Northeastern's work in autonomous vehicles, drones, and humanoid robots recently opened for the 2023-2024 school year. This building is approximately 350000 sqft, including a 15,000 square foot makers space for students of all colleges and degree levels.

Sustainability
The 2011 Sustainable Endowments Institute's College Sustainability Report Card issued Northeastern a grade of "A−" for its environmental sustainability efforts and programs. Additionally, the Princeton Review rated Northeastern as one of the top 15 "Green Colleges" in the nation in 2010. In 2011, the GreenMetric World University ranking evaluated Northeastern as the second greenest university in the world, and first in the US. Northeastern placed first in the rankings again in 2014.

In accordance with a Boston zoning code amendment in 2007, International Village residence hall was certified as a LEED Gold building in 2010. Dockser Hall was the first building on campus to achieve LEED certification, also Gold, with the completion of its renovation in 2010. East Village was rated LEED Silver in 2016 and the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex was rated LEED Gold in 2018. The university affiliated LightView apartment building is targeting a LEED Platinum certification, the first in student housing in the City of Boston.

In 2004, Northeastern was awarded the gold medal by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for its Dedham Campus.

Public transportation
The MBTA subway Orange Line and Green Line E branch pass through the Northeastern campus. Five stations serve the campus: Massachusetts Avenue and Ruggles on the Orange Line; and Symphony, Northeastern University, and Museum of Fine Arts on the Green Line. The Green Line is paralleled by MBTA bus route. Ruggles station is also served by the Needham, Providence/Stoughton, and Franklin/Foxboro Lines of the MBTA Commuter Rail system and is a major transfer point for MBTA bus routes.

Centers and commons
Facing Huntington Avenue, Krentzman Quadrangle is the main quadrangle on the campus of Northeastern. It is recognizable by the "Northeastern University" brick sign in front. The quad lies at the heart of the original campus between Ell, Dodge and Richards halls, and serves as a gathering space for community members and outdoor activities. It was named after Harvey Krentzman, a businessman and 1949 alumnus.

Centennial Common is a lawn created to mark the 100th anniversary of Northeastern University in 1998. The grassy area borders Shillman Hall, Ryder Hall, Meserve Hall, Leon Street, Forsyth Street and Ruggles Station, and serves as a gateway to the West Campus. The area is a popular gathering spot frequently used by students for recreational purposes and outdoor activities by student organizations.

The Marino Recreation Center, named after 1961 alumnus Roger Marino, co-founder of EMC Corporation, is an indoor fitness center that opened in the Fall of 1996.

Halls and auditoriums
Ell Hall, completed in 1947, is one of the oldest buildings on campus and is centered on Krentzman Quadrangle. It contains administrative offices, classrooms, art display space, a 992-seat auditorium and the Northeastern Bookstore. Like Dodge Hall, Ell Hall has five floors and also connects to the tunnel network. The tunnels interconnect the major administrative and traditional academic buildings for use in inclement weather. Ell Hall was named for Carl Ell, president of Northeastern from 1940 to 1959, who is credited with expanding the campus and making cooperative education an integral part of the university-wide curriculum.

Blackman Auditorium, Northeastern's largest event space, hosts many different types of events for classes, theater groups, dance teams, musical groups, choral groups, fraternities, sororities, and orchestral ensembles. Blackman has hosted many talented individuals from Maya Angelou to Seth Meyers.

Gallery 360 is Northeastern University's art gallery, which is free and open to the public throughout the year. The 1000 sqft space houses temporary exhibits of artworks by visiting artists, students, faculty, and the surrounding community. Some larger exhibits also include the adjacent hallways for additional space. Curation and administration is under the supervision of the College of Arts Media and Design (CAMD). Dodge Hall sits on Krentzman Quadrangle and primarily serves as the home of Northeastern's D'Amore-McKim School of Business. The building was completed in 1952 and named for Robert Gray Dodge, a former chairman of Northeastern's board of trustees. It has five floors. From 1953 until Snell Library opened in 1990, Dodge Hall's basement served as the university's main library.

Originally known as West Building, Richards Hall borders Krentzman Quadrangle and was the first building constructed on campus in October 1938. Its light gray brick and vertical window strips design was the work of alumnus Herman Voss and was replicated in other surrounding buildings. Richards Hall was named for Boston industrialist James Lorin Richards, a former board trustee.

Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering Complex
On February 21, 2014, Northeastern had its groundbreaking ceremony for the new Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering Complex (ISEC) on Columbus Avenue. Completed in 2017, the 220000 ft2 building provides research and educational space for students and faculty from the College of Science, Bouvé College of Health Sciences, College of Engineering, and Khoury College of Computer Sciences. The centerpiece of the complex includes a large atrium, a spiral staircase, and a 280-seat auditorium.

Matthews Arena
Opened in 1910 and originally known as the Boston Arena, Matthews Arena is the world's oldest surviving indoor ice hockey arena. Located on the eastern edge of Northeastern University's campus, it is home to the Northeastern Huskies men's and women's hockey teams, and men's basketball team as well as the Wentworth Institute of Technology's men's hockey team. The arena is named after former university Board of Trustees Chairman George J. Matthews, a 1956 graduate, and his wife, the late Hope M. Matthews, who helped fund a major renovation in 1982. The arena is the original home of the NHL Boston Bruins and the WHA New England Whalers (now the NHL Carolina Hurricanes). It was also the secondary home to the NBA Boston Celtics in the 1940s. It has hosted all or part of the America East Conference men's basketball tournament a total of seven times and hosted the 1960 Frozen Four. The arena also served as the original home to the annual Beanpot tournament between Boston's four major college hockey programs.

Dorms and housing
East Village is Northeastern's newest dorm building and only houses freshmen and upperclassmen who are in the University Honors Program. The building is located at 291 St. Botolph Street and opened in January 2015. Honors freshman live in its suite-style rooms whereas upperclassmen can choose full apartments with kitchen facilities. The building also contains 5 classrooms in the basement and an event space on the 17th Floor. In 2008, West Village Building F was recognized in American Institute of Architects New England 2008 Merit Awards for Design Excellence.

South Campus (Columbus Avenue)
Northeastern's southernmost section of campus is located along Columbus Avenue in Roxbury, parallel to the Orange line. The university expanded south into Roxbury at the same time as they were building West Village. In 2001, Davenport Commons was opened, providing 585 students housing in two residence halls while 75 families representing a range of incomes have been able to purchase a condo or townhouse at or below Boston's market value. Davenport Commons also created commercial space on Tremont Street.

During the summer of 2006, Northeastern proposed a new residence hall further away from the main campus, at the corner of Tremont Street and Ruggles Street. Construction began in late February 2007. In the spring of 2009, the complex was named International Village and opened later that summer. It consists of three interconnected residential towers, an office tower, administration building, and a gym. A 400-seat dining hall is available to all members of the Northeastern community as well as the public.

Lightview was launched in 2019, which was Boston's first developer-led, equity-financed student housing project built and financed by American Campus Communities exclusively for Northeastern students. The building is 20 stories tall and includes a fitness area as well as social and recreational spaces.

Library facilities
Northeastern University Libraries include the Snell Library and the John D. O'Bryant African-American Institute Library. The NU School of Law Library is separately administered by the NU School of Law. The NU Libraries received federal depository designation in 1963.

The Snell Library opened in 1990 at a cost of $35 million. It is also home to the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections department, which includes the Benjamin LaGuer papers collection. The Special Collections focus on records of Boston-area community-based organizations that are concerned with social justice issues. In June 2016, the library staff adopted an open-access policy to make its members' professional research publicly accessible online.

Network campuses
In addition to Northeastern's main Boston campus, the university operates a number of satellite locations in Massachusetts, including the George J. Kostas Research Institute in Burlington, a Financial District campus in the Hilton Hotel near Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston, a Dedham Campus in Dedham, and a Marine Science Center in Nahant. The Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security, which opened in 2011, contains the Laboratory for Structural Testing of Resilient and Sustainable Systems (STReSS Laboratory). The laboratory is "equipped to test full-scale and large-scale structural systems and materials to failure so as to explore the development of new strategies for designing, simulating, and sensing structural and infrastructure systems". The university has also launched a number of full-service remote network campuses in North America, including in Charlotte, North Carolina, in October 2011, Seattle, in January 2013, San Jose, California, in March 2015, Toronto, in 2016 and Vancouver, British Columbia in 2019. In January 2020, Northeastern announced that it was opening the Roux Institute in Portland, Maine, a new research institute focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning in digital and life sciences. The decision came after Northeastern was selected for a $100 million donation by David Roux, in hopes of turning the city into a new tech hub and in an attempt to spark economic growth in the region.

More recently, the university has continued to focus on global expansion. In late 2018, Northeastern announced the acquisition of the New College of the Humanities, a small private London-based college founded by the philosopher A. C. Grayling. The move was seen as unorthodox as most U.S. colleges have typically chosen to build new campus branches abroad, rather than purchasing existing ones.

On July 1, 2022, Mills College in Oakland, California was renamed to Mills College at Northeastern University through a merger between the university and the liberal arts college, which had financial troubles.

On May 29, 2024, Northeastern and Marymount Manhattan College in New York City announced a merger that will create Northeastern University – New York City.

Student organizations
Northeastern has more than 16 varsity teams competing in the NCAA, over 30 club sports teams and over 400 student clubs and organizations. Among the student-run organizations are: Resident Student Association (RSA), Student Government Association (SGA), The Huntington News, Northeastern Television (NUTV), Northeastern Shakespeare Society (NSS), Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL), Social Justice Resource Center (SJRC), and the Council for University Programs (CUP) organize activities for Northeastern students as well as the surrounding community.

Northeastern hosts six student-run a cappella groups on campus: three mixed ensembles (Distilled Harmony, The Downbeats, and The Nor'easters), two treble ensembles (Pitch, Please! and Treble on Huntington), and one TTBB ensemble (UniSons). All groups regularly compete in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA). The Nor'easters have performed at ICCA finals in New York City three times and won the ICCA title in 2013 and 2017. Pitch, Please! competed at ICCA finals in 2019.

Athletics
Since 1927, Northeastern University's intercollegiate athletic teams have been known as the Huskies. Prior to 1927, Northeastern had no official mascot. A committee was formed to choose a mascot and members eventually settled on the Siberian Husky. In February 1927, a pup was selected from legendary Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race competitor Leonhard Seppala's kennel in Poland Springs, Maine. On March 4, 1927, King Husky I arrived at Northeastern in a campus celebration for which classes were canceled. Since then, live mascots have been a Siberian Husky breed, but after losing two mascots in three months in the early 1970s and after upheaval due to having live canine mascots, the university's administration was reluctant to continue the live mascot tradition. In 2005, the university resumed the live mascot tradition; the current live mascot is named Moses. The university's official costumed mascot is Paws.

The university's official colors are Northeastern red and black, with white often used as an alternate color. The university fight song, "All Hail, Northeastern," was composed by Charles A. Pethybridge, class of 1932. Since 2005, 14 of 18 Northeastern varsity sports teams primarily compete in NCAA Division I's Colonial Athletic Association (CAA).

During its first decades, Northeastern initially had seven athletics teams: basketball, cross country, indoor track, outdoor track, crew and football.

Northeastern sponsors the following sports teams:
 * (M) Baseball
 * (M), (W) Basketball
 * (M), (W) Cross country
 * (W) Field hockey
 * (M), (W) Ice hockey (in Hockey East)
 * (M), (W) Rowing (in Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges and Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges)
 * (M), (W) Soccer
 * (W) Swimming and diving
 * (M), (W) Track and field
 * (W) Volleyball

The baseball, soccer, lacrosse and rugby teams compete at Parsons Field, a multipurpose facility located in Brookline, a mile and a half from the campus. The field's baseball diamond was named Friedman Diamond in 1988. The field hockey team, along with the Huskies' track and field teams, compete at a sports complex about 10 mi away from campus in Dedham. Matthews Arena, which opened 1910, is home to the hockey and basketball programs. The 4,666-seat arena is located close to campus, just off Massachusetts Avenue. It is considered the world's oldest multi-purpose athletic building. Henderson Boathouse is home to the Huskies' men's & women's rowing squads. The Henderson Boathouse is located on the Charles River near Soldiers Field Road in Allston. The university also maintains the Cabot Physical Education Center, which opened in 1954 and includes a basketball court; an indoor track and natatorium; the 10755 sqft Gries Center for Sports Medicine and Performance Center; a squash facility; and the William E. Carter Playground, a renovated community park on Columbus Avenue.

The baseball team was founded in 1921 and has since competed in one College World Series and played in the NCAA regionals seven times. In the 2008 National Championship, the team made the Grand Finals and placed fourth behind University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Washington, and University of California, Berkeley, while defeating Brown University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University.

In 2009, Northeastern eliminated its 74-year-old football program. From 1933 to 2009, the Northeastern Huskies football program's all-time record was 290-365-17 (.444), it produced 20 All-Americans and won the 2002 Atlantic 10 Conference championship. Citing sparse attendance, numerous losing seasons and the expense to renovate Parsons Field to an acceptable standard, the university's Board of Trustees voted on November 20, 2009, to end the football program. According to President Joseph Aoun, "Leadership requires that we make these choices. This decision allows us to focus on our existing athletic programs."

In addition to intercollegiate athletics, Northeastern offers 40 club sports, including sailing, judo, rugby, lacrosse, Olympic-Style taekwondo, alpine skiing, squash, cycling, and ultimate Frisbee. In 2005 the women's rugby team finished third in the nation in Division II, while in the same year the men's rugby team won the largest annual tournament in the United States. Recently, the women's rugby team competed and placed 11th at the Collegiate Rugby Championship. In the 2008–09 academic year the Northeastern Club Field Hockey and Women's Basketball teams won their respective National Championships. From 2007 to 2009, the Northeastern Club Baseball team won three straight New England Club Baseball Association championships. The Club Taekwondo team placed 1st overall in Division II for the 2018–19 Season in the Eastern Collegiate Taekwondo Conference.

On May 25, 2010, the club baseball team defeated Penn State to win the National Club Baseball Association Division II World Series and the national championship.

Ice hockey
The men's and women's hockey teams compete in the Hockey East conference. Northeastern defeated Boston College, 4–2, to win the 2019 Beanpot and defeated Boston University, 5–4, to win the 2020 Beanpot. In 2020, Northeastern beat Boston University, 5–4, in overtime to win the Beanpot for the third year in a row. In addition to winning the Beanpot title, Northeastern took home both awards with the award for most valuable player being presented to Adam Gaudette and the Eberly Award being presented to Cayden Primeau who had a save percentage of .974 (making him the goalie with second highest save percentage to win the award in the 44 years the award has been given).

Underwear ("Undie") Run
Started in 2005, the Underwear Run is a Northeastern-sponsored event around fall midterm season in which students strip down to their underwear and run a track around campus and near parts of the city. The Northeastern University Police Department (NUPD) supervises the event to maintain the flow of traffic through the city. Students have described it as a "liberating experience" that "brings a sense of community and builds school spirit." Though the event was officially cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19 concerns, it was unofficially organized by students in fall of 2021.

Husky Hunt
Organized by the Resident Student Association, Husky Hunt is a 24-hour city-wide scavenger hunt that has 50 teams of students roaming around the Greater Boston area in search of locations that correspond to clues, games, puzzles, and riddles. The scavenger hunt starts with a preliminary qualifying quiz of which only 1/3 of the total group of participating teams progress to the hunt.

Notable alumni and faculty
Northeastern University has more than 275,000 living alumni based in over 180 countries around the world.

Notable faculty

 * Ruth Aguilera, Distinguished Darla and Frederick Brodsky Trustee Professor in Global Business at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business
 * Michael Dukakis, Former Governor of Massachusetts, Democratic Presidential Nominee in 1988, Professor of Political Science
 * Matthias Felleisen, Author of How to Design Programs, Professor of Computer Science
 * Mary Florentine, psychoacoustician, Matthews Distinguished Professor
 * Professor Lyrical, Rapper and Public Speaker, Associate Professor of Mathematics
 * Pran Nath, co-developer of the theory of supergravity
 * Nada Sanders, Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at the D'Amore-McKim School of Business
 * Ena Vazquez-Nuttall (1937-2011), psychologist and former dean of Bouve College of Health Sciences
 * Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli, professor of psychology, Founding Director of the Biomedical Imaging Center