Joseph E. Aoun, a leader in higher education policy and a renowned scholar in linguistics, is the seventh President of Northeastern University.
President Aoun has strategically aligned the University’s research enterprise with three global imperatives—health, security, and sustainability. Northeastern’s faculty focus on interdisciplinary research, entrepreneurship, and transforming academic research into commercial solutions for the world’s most pressing problems. During President Aoun’s tenure, the University has realized a 189 percent growth in external research funding, along with approximately 1,500 patent applications filed by faculty and students.
The show must go on, eventually. Theaters and concert halls will reopen. But how will the experience of the performing arts be different for audiences and artists alike in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic? What challenges lie ahead for an industry that is one of the primary economic drivers in Massachusetts, but whose foundation - large public gatherings - could be shaky? Globe critic Don Aucoin talks to five of Boston’s top cultural leaders about the road to recovery, and what the New Normal might look like.
Don Aucoin is the Globe’s theater critic. He was part of the team that wrote the top-10 New York Times best-seller “Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy” (Simon & Schuster, 2009), and his story on race relations in Boston is included in “Best Newspaper Writing 2006-2007.” In 2000-2001, he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
