Joseph E. Aoun

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Joseph Aoun
7th President of
Northeastern University
In office
August 2006 – present
Preceded byRichard M. Freeland
Personal details
Born (1953-03-26) March 26, 1953 (age 71)
University of Paris VIII
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Websitepresident.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

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.

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

References

  1. ^ a b "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 19 April 2011.
  2. ^ Pamela J. Johnson (22 June 2006). "Trojans Bid Farewell to Joseph Aoun". USC. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  3. ^ Pennington, Bill (December 27, 2019). "Adding Football Saved One College. Dumping It Boosted Another". The New York Times. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
  4. ^ "NU buys $8.9m home for president". The Huntington News. 2007-07-24. Retrieved 2023-06-05.
  5. ^ According to Northeastern's 2018 IRS Form 990.
  6. ^ Charlie Wolfson (21 April 2020). "Aoun to give 20 percent of salary to student aid and COVID-19 research". The Huntington News. Retrieved 8 August 2022.
  7. ^ "Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence". Barnes and Noble.
  8. ^ Aoun, Joseph (27 January 2016). "Robot-Proof: How Colleges Can Keep People Relevant in the Workplace". Chronicle. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  9. ^ Aoun, Joseph. "Robot-Proof". Robot-Proof. MIT Press. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  10. ^ "Robot Proof, Sept 12 2017". c-span.org. C-SPAN. Retrieved 25 September 2017.
  11. ^ "Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun receives France's highest honor". News @ Northeastern. 28 September 2018.

External links

Academic offices
Preceded by 7th President of Northeastern University
2006-present 		Succeeded by
Incumbent
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