Profile of Today's College Student

Each year the National Association of Student Affairs Professionals does a survey to get a profile of college students. They call the results the "Profile of Today's College Student" and the 2008 results are now out and can be seen here. For us in the Housing Services Committee, this data helps us better know who we're advocating for in the residence halls.

Footloose Is Coming to Campus

The latest press release to come to the Housing Services Committee is about a musical taking place on December 12th and 13th in the Fenway Center. See below for details:

December 2, 2008- Kick off your Sunday shoes Northeastern! The Great White Way, Northeastern University's student directed musical theater group presents Footloose December 12th and 13th at 7:30 pm in the Fenway Center located on St. Stephen’s street.

Footloose written by Dean Pitchford with lyrics by Tom Snow is a musical based on a movie of the same name. The musical follows the story of the main character Ren as he moves from Chicago to a small town named Bomont where dancing is outlawed. The musical includes a host of popular 80's hits including the title song "Footloose," the upbeat "Let's Hear it for the Boy," and the powerful "I need a Hero." Footloose is directed by Peter Karpathakis with Katie Fulton from NuDANCO as the choreographer. The Great White Way held auditions for the musical in September and has been working with the cast of 35 since then. Prior productions include Once Upon a Mattress and Urinetown: the Musical.

Tickets are on sale at the Northeastern box office and must be purchased at the box office before the show. $5 with NU ID, $10 without.

Lance Bass On-Campus Wednesday

For just $10 you could have the opportunity to see former N'Sync pop star Lance Bass right here at Northeastern University. Tomorrow at 7:00 PM in Blackman Auditorium, Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority is presenting Lass Bass. Bass will be speaking "candidly about his childhood, his astonishing experiences growing up in one of the biggest bands in the world, his shock and frustration at the band's eventual dissolution, and his subsequent career, including his four months in Russia, training to become a cosmonaut." Bass will also be discussing life as a homosexual. ASL interpretation will be provided and a book signing will take place after the event for Bass' book Out of Sync. Tickets are on sale at the Blackman Box office, limit 2 per Northeastern University Husky Card.

What's the Higher Education Price Index?

The Higher Education Price Index is something that comes up when talking about costs in the world of higher education. The index is similar to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) which is commonly used to gauge rising (or declining) costs of living and inflation, but geared towards colleges and universities. As a result, the HEPI comes into consideration when there is an evaluation of tuition, housing, and fee increases at Northeastern. Similar to the CPI, which is calculated by the United States Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Higher Education Price Index (HEPI) has been calculated by Commonfund since 2005.

The change to the HEPI historically has been higher than that of the CPI. However, this year the HEPI rose 3.6% while the CPI rose 3.7%. In the current tough economic times with worries of deflation, it will be interesting to see what the next set of numbers are.