College town hall

Fourth in a series

LIKE A scientist collecting field samples, Northeastern University president Joseph Aoun passed among the top city officials awaiting the returns in Boston Mayor Thomas Menino's office on election night. Aoun didn't want to overlook anything that might help his mission. And after just six months on the job, it is clear that the new president's mission is to weave the university more deeply into the life of the city.

Over the past decade, Northeastern has evolved from a commuter school to a residential campus with a more selective student body. Along the way, the school shed its scrappy, underdog reputation. Now Northeastern needs a niche. It has found one, according to university officials, in the form of an interdisciplinary School of Social Science, Urban Affairs, and Public Policy that aims to animate scholarly research.

Scores of colleges and universities across the United States are embracing social responsibility and public service as central to the mission of higher education. But this "engaged scholarship" movement often fails to provide practical solutions to the society wide problems of poor healthcare, poverty, sub par education, and housing shortages. Northeastern is pledging to place the university's problem-solving role at the center of its campus. Barry Bluestone, the interdisciplinary school's dean, has mounted an effort to raise $125 million to build a center that will integrate university research with policy-oriented action. What Bluestone hopes to create is not only a 17-story building on Huntington Avenue but a "Northeastern school of thought."

Northeastern is in a strong position tomake this happen. Aoun, a former dean at the University of Southern California, is a prodigious fund-raiser who helped to lower barriers between the college and nearby neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Bluestone, who also directs Northeastern's Center for Urban and Regional Policy, has directed some of Greater Boston's major public-policy investigations, including a landmark housing study in 2000 that led to state incentives for communities that develop multifamily housing complexes near transit stations. New ideas for the nascent center include a leadership institute for town meeting members, fellowships in key municipal departments, and ambitious journalism projects in local schools.

There are ruts ahead. Northeastern could recruit the greatest experts on local zoning in the nation and still run afoul of nearby neighborhoods during the construction phase. Some academic departments might still balk at any effort to put a "think and do tank" on a plane with pure research. If the new school clicks, though, residents of Boston and other urban centers should benefit, even if they never set foot on campus.