N/A
September 1, 2015
Northeastern is for lovers. Just ask Jim Smith, E’88, who fell for Amie Miller, AS’87, in the library stacks before graduation-week festivities.
Unsure of his footing, Jim asked Amie to a party he was “thinking of having,” just to gauge her interest. She said yes. The next Friday night, when their paths crossed again at a popular restaurant near Fenway Park, their story together began.
Married since 1991, the Smiths share what Jim calls “our NU DNA.” Both are hard-working, self-motivated, and shaped by co-op. Eager to influence the future of their alma mater, they recently endowed a scholarship in Amie’s major, journalism, and made a gift—matched by Jim’s firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP— to the Dean’s Innovation Fund at the library, where the couple first connected.
“I never really left Northeastern,” Amie explains. A corporate writer at Digital Equipment Corporation, she went on to found her own marketing communications firm, WordSmith Ink. She also taught writing for Northeastern’s technical communications program for 15 years.
She has high hopes for the young writers who will earn her named scholarship, saying that “the lack of integrity among some journalists today makes me sad. I want to bring excellence back to the profession.”
Meanwhile, she and Jim are “blown away” by Snell Library’s transformation into a hub of learning, research, and creativity, with studios for making videos, music, and prototype inventions. The couple’s names are now inscribed on the glass wall of one of Snell’s large study rooms.
“I love the collaboration going on in there,” says Jim. The “vibe” and teamwork reminds him of PwC, in Manhattan, where he heads a management consulting practice in mergers and acquisitions.
The Smiths bring more than gifts to their alma mater. Amie has donated botanical drawings to Snell, and last year, after opening AMIE Bakery on Cape Cod, she catered a campus fundraiser and taught the art of puff pastry at the university’s cooking-demonstration venue, the Xhibition Kitchen. Jim is creating full-time and co-op positions for his 400-person team, where several talented alums are being groomed for leadership.
“My wife is amazing, and I give her credit for keeping us so engaged with Northeastern,” Jim says. “It all comes back to the Northeastern mindset: high impact, high performance.”