Northeastern selects location for Seattle graduate campus

Northeastern University has selected the innovative South Lake Union location for its new graduate campus in Seattle. Photo by istockphoto.

North­eastern Uni­ver­sity on Tuesday announced the loca­tion of its new grad­uate campus in the growing South Lake Union neigh­bor­hood, an inno­v­a­tive hub of global health, life sci­ences and tech­nology com­pa­nies and insti­tu­tions that com­ple­ments the grad­uate degrees offered by the university.

Located at 401 Terry Avenue North, North­eastern University–Seattle will share the head­quar­ters building of the Insti­tute for Sys­tems Biology, one of Seattle’s pre­mier, non­profit research orga­ni­za­tions. The col­lab­o­ra­tion with ISB is one of many research part­ner­ships the uni­ver­sity plans to develop.

“As a nexus of inno­va­tion, South Lake Union is the ideal loca­tion for a global research uni­ver­sity like North­eastern,” said Tayloe Wash­burn, dean and CEO of North­eastern University–Seattle. “With cen­trally located South Lake Union as our home base, we are ener­gized to bring a new non­profit research uni­ver­sity to Seattle to assure that the com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions in our region have the high-​​quality talent they need to grow and succeed.”

Northeastern’s grad­uate cam­puses strate­gi­cally align the university’s edu­ca­tional and research strengths with the needs of the regions’ high-​​profile indus­tries. Opening in early 2013, North­eastern University–Seattle will offer 15 grad­uate degree pro­grams ranging from cyber­se­cu­rity and com­puter sci­ence to health infor­matics and engi­neering. Each pro­gram is designed to meet the needs of the Puget Sound region’s inno­v­a­tive tech­nology sector, which is anchored by employers such as Microsoft, Amazon​.com and Boeing, and fueled by a vibrant startup culture.

“By locating in South Lake Union and part­nering with insti­tu­tions like ISB, North­eastern Uni­ver­sity is making a strong state­ment about its com­mit­ment to building strategic part­ner­ships with regional employers and research part­ners that will ben­efit stu­dents’ career suc­cess,” said Lee Hood, CEO of ISB. “ISB is very excited about part­nering with North­eastern to create inno­v­a­tive aca­d­emic offer­ings for courses in new pro­grams such as sys­tems biology and per­son­al­ized medicine.”

A North­eastern alumnus, Ken Stuart, pres­i­dent emer­itus and founder of Seattle BioMed, wel­comed his alma mater to the South Lake Union community.

“I had my under­grad­uate edu­ca­tion at North­eastern Uni­ver­sity, and I’m thrilled the uni­ver­sity is cre­ating a grad­uate campus in Seattle and bringing its lead­er­ship in grad­uate edu­ca­tion and expe­ri­en­tial learning to the region,” Stuart said. “North­eastern stu­dents in Seattle will have a great oppor­tu­nity to learn from expert fac­ulty and be part of a dis­tin­guished global network.”

All North­eastern Uni­ver­sity stu­dents and alumni have access to the same global net­work of resources, whether they are enrolled at the Seattle or Char­lotte grad­uate cam­puses or at the university’s main campus in Boston. Stu­dents will ben­efit from the men­toring and exper­tise of Northeastern’s world-​​class faculty.

Northeastern’s fac­ulty will teach industry-​​aligned grad­uate pro­grams both online and on-​​site at the Seattle campus. This hybrid learning approach com­bines the tra­di­tional ben­e­fits of face-​​to-​​face instruc­tion with the flex­i­bility of online learning.

“North­eastern Uni­ver­sity will add great value to our local tech entre­pre­neurs and com­pa­nies throughout Wash­ington state,” said Susan Sigl, CEO of the Wash­ington Tech­nology Industry Asso­ci­a­tion. “The university’s focus on industry-​​aligned degrees and local part­ner­ships is a pow­erful com­bi­na­tion for Wash­ington stu­dents and employers.”

The new loca­tion also rep­re­sents lead­er­ship in sus­tain­ability, as the ISB building is LEED (Lead­er­ship in Energy and Envi­ron­mental Design) Platinum-​​certified, the highest level of this sus­tain­able cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. The campus, which fea­tures meeting and recep­tion space, as well as modern class­rooms with cutting-​​edge tech­nology, including advanced video con­fer­encing equip­ment, is in the center of many of the region’s most dynamic com­pa­nies and organizations.

The new grad­uate campus space will also fea­ture a one-​​of-​​a-​​kind art instal­la­tion by Seattle-​​based artist J.P. Canlis, who is known for his steady tide of artistic cre­ativity in the glass art genre. The instal­la­tion, titled “Con­nec­tivity,” will draw vis­i­tors into the space and illus­trate the inter­con­nec­tivity among the North­eastern com­mu­nity and its global networks.