Joseph E. Aoun

Joseph Aoun
7th President of Northeastern University
In office August 2006 – present
Preceded by	Richard M. Freeland
Personal details
Born	(1953-03-26) March 26, 1953 (age 70) Beirut, Lebanon
Education	Université Saint-Joseph University of Paris VIII Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Website	president.northeastern.edu

Joseph Aoun (born March 26, 1953)^[1] is a Lebanese-born American linguist and academic administrator who serves as the 7th president of Northeastern University since August 2006. He was previously a professor and dean at the University of Southern California. As a theoretical syntactician, he is known for his work on logical form and wh-movement.

Biography

Aoun was born in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. He earned a Masters in Oriental Languages and Literature at the Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut in 1975, a Diploma of Advanced Studies in General and Theoretical Linguistics at the University of Paris VIII in 1977, and a PhD in Linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981. He joined the University of Southern California (USC) in 1982 as a Linguistics Professor. During his time at USC, he served as head of the academic Senate and eventually became a Dean. His success in fund-raising allowed for the hiring of multiple professors, the creation of named chairs backed by endowments, and the creation of two new sub-departments for the study of Armenian and Korean.

He is married to his wife Zeina; the couple has two sons, Adrian and Joseph Karim.^[2]

Aoun was hired by Northeastern University in Boston in 2006 to serve as university president. While at Northeastern, he and the Board of Trustees oversaw the cancelling of the Northeastern Huskies football program. The program was 8-26 in its preceding three seasons and faced declining attendance and high costs if it wished to remain competitive in recruiting. The move, while controversial, was generally considered positive in retrospect; the funding it freed up allowed for the construction of the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex, which played more directly into Northeastern's strengths. Aoun later said he was overwhelmed with calls from other college presidents asking how he managed the feat without enraging alumni.^[3]

In 2007, Northeastern University purchased a 5-story townhouse for President Aoun at 34 Beacon Street for $8.9m.^[4] Aoun's 2018 salary was around $1.5–1.8 million dollars.^[5] In spring 2020, Aoun announced he would donate 20% of his annual salary (~$290,000) to new funds meant to support students facing economic hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and to support research programs related to the crisis.^[6]

Robot-Proof

Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence was published and released in 2017 by MIT Press.^[7] The book appeared over a year after Aoun wrote a commentary for the Chronicle of Higher Education^[8] that shares the first part of the book's title.

In Robot-Proof, Aoun proposes a way to educate the next generation of college students to invent, to create, and to discover—to fill needs in society that even the most sophisticated artificial intelligence agent cannot.^[9]

A "robot-proof" education, Aoun argues, is not concerned solely with memorizing facts. Rather, it fosters a creative mindset and the mental elasticity to invent, discover, or create something valuable to society—a scientific proof, a hip-hop recording, a web comic, a cure for cancer. In his book, Aoun lays out the framework for a new discipline, humanics, which builds on our innate strengths and prepares students to compete in a labor market in which smart machines work alongside human professionals.

He argues for the need for better and continuous education to keep up with changing technology, saying, "Beyond simply conferring degrees, the foundational purpose of colleges and universities must be to educate — and that means equipping people of all ages, at all stages of their careers, to build successful and fulfilling lives."^[10]

Honors and awards

• Chevalier de La Légion d’honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honor): French Government, 2018^[11]
• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2013
• Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America, 2011
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2010^[1]
• Doctor of Humane Letters: Anatolia College, 2009
• Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa: Hebrew Union College, 2007
• Chevalier de L'ordre des Palmes Academiques (Knight of the Order of the Academic Palms): French Government, 2006
• Endowed Chair, Anna H. Bing Dean's Chair in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
• MIT Robert A. Muh Alumni Award in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, 2011
• USC Associates Award For Creativity In Research And Scholarship, 1997
• USC Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award, Award for The Syntax of Scope (with A. Li), 1993
• USC Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award, Award for A Grammar of Anaphora, 1988

See also

• Generative linguistics
• David Pesetsky
• Hagit Borer
• Richard S. Kayne
• Howard Lasnik

References

External links

• Higher education for the AI age: Let’s think about it before the machines do it for us The Washington Post 10.27.16
• Doubling Down on Innovation for Success, The Chronicle of Higher Education 10.10.16
• Hybrid Jobs Call for Hybrid Education, Harvard Business Review 4.12.16
• Robot-Proof: How Colleges Can Keep People Relevant in the Workplace, The Chronicle of Higher Education 1.27.16
• The Viral President, Photos & Videos of President Aoun, Northeastern University
• An Education Mission for Our Veterans, Real Clear Education 11.11.14
• The Global Eduplex, Boston Globe 9.26.14
• Beyond the limits of traditional learning, Times Higher Education 6.26.14
• Let's Get Engaged, Real Clear Education 5.14.14
• To Meet President Obama's Jobs Goal, Involve All Colleges, Bloomberg Businessweek 1.29.14
• Giving students an enterprising path to start on, Boston Globe 2.16.13
• A shakeup of higher education, Boston Globe 11.17.12
• Northeastern president makes wise use of YouTube, Boston Globe 11.11.12
• Northeastern president named to Homeland Security council, Boston Globe 03.04.12
• President Aoun talks about the cost and value of higher education in America, 90.9 WBUR Radio Boston, 02.08.12
• Joseph Aoun On Northeastern University’s National Expansion, 90.9 WBUR Radio Boston 11.04.11
• Northeastern University looks southeast to Charlotte, The Charlotte Observer 11.01.11
• U. Opens the First in a Planned Series of Graduate Campuses Across the U.S., The Chronicle of Higher Education 11.01.11
• Northeastern putting down stakes across the country, Boston Globe 10.31.11
• Guest post: A clear path to a post-collegiate job, The Washington Post 10.12.11
• President Aoun and Entrepreneur Peter Thiel Debate the Value of College, 90.9 WBUR Radio Boston 06.30.11
• A college education is your best bet, CNN 6.9.11
• Learning Today: the Lasting Value of Place, The Chronicle of Higher Education 5.8.11
• The costs of cutting higher ed, Boston Globe 12.15.10
• Game Changer, The Presidency (American Council on Education Magazine) Fall 2010
• Expand students' global experiences, Politico 8.24.10
• Protect Unpaid Internships, Inside Higher Ed 7.13.10
• Saving Public Higher Ed, Inside Higher Ed 10.1.09
• Millions more going to college?, Boston Globe 7.16.09
• Fast-rising NU reexamines its identity, Boston Globe 4.6.09
• Joseph Aoun: Finding Opportunities in the Recession, The Chronicle of Higher Education 1.30.09
• Boston and its colleges need to nurture unique partnership, Boston Globe 2.17.09

This page was last edited on 7 March 2024, at 19:18