The decade from 1985-95 was one of development for Northeastern’s co-op program. In the fall of 1985, the prevailing Executive Vice President, John A. Curry, released a statement via email to the broader Northeastern University community detailing the launch of a national advertising campaign on cooperative education. Costing the university around sixty million dollars, the public service advertisements would raise awareness of “[co-op’s] superior form of education in the minds of the American public.” The email also describes the many benefits that could come from this campaign; primarily, generating more admissions, expanding the existing alumni network, improving the university’s PR, and growing the co-op employer network. Evidently, the target audience and reach are mainly prospective students and businesses interested in getting involved with hiring students on co-op. To prepare the university, Curry established two main task forces that would direct all communication: the Internal Taskforce, given the responsibility to familiarize faculty, staff students, and trustees with the advertising message, and the External Taskforce, charged with preparing the university to respond to the increased number of inquiries on cooperative education. Also attached to the email was a sample print advertisement, featuring the slogan, “You earn a future when you earn a degree!”, which is a sample of some of the rhetoric used to persuade prospective students.

Along with the email, we also looked into sources surrounding the treatment of minority students at Northeastern from this decade within the scope of co-op opportunities. Specifically, we found a newsletter from Northeastern called “Interchange;” with headlines reading “Diversity Comes to Co-op,” and “Four Minority Students Honored by Co-op.” During this period, Northeastern Minority Liaisons worked to bring about change and awareness surrounding racism in the workplace and especially in the co-op workplace. The newsletter contained information about a workshop called “Cross-Cultural Diversity,” where about 40 students participated in trying to make a change in workplace inequality. Attached was a copy of a quiz given to the participants, asking true or false questions about different racial groups. Some examples of the quiz questions were: “1. True or false, A ‘hog’ is the kind of car the stereotype says most blacks drive” and “2. True or false, ‘what it is’ is a form of greeting used by blacks usually meaning ‘what's happening or what's going on.’” Even only twenty years ago, the problem of degrading those of different backgrounds was still prevalent and affected people in our community in terms of the way they were treated in the workplace and the opportunities they were getting here at Northeastern. The questions themselves have nothing to do with how to treat people equally and correctly, but instead, add to the ostracizing of people of a different race. Using just that quiz in the workshop, I'm not sure how much that workshop helped change the problem for students, but it is very interesting to compare that to times of today and how minority students are treated in workplaces, as well as how we bring about awareness and change to issues like these today. We also found a chart at the bottom of the newsletter that had useful information regarding co-op FAQ’s from this period. It held answers to different questions students asked about co-op for each of the different majors (business, criminal justice, engineering, pharmacy, allied health professionals, and arts/sciences). This chart was supposed to help ease the minds of students surrounding new internships and co-op for the first time, but answers were vague. It probably did give students a sense of time and when they should start thinking about doing certain steps in their process, which is a plus. We have way more advanced help and counseling with these situations nowadays, so much so that every student will take a “co-op class” and meet with a co-op advisor before applying or entering the co-op world here at Northeastern.