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Tufts University

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Coordinates: [42°24′3.17″N, 71°7′22″W]

Tufts University is a private university located in Medford, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. The school's stated emphasis is on active citizenship and public serviceBacow, Lawrence S. ["How Universities Can Teach Public Service."] The Boston Globe. 15 October 2005. in all disciplines, and Tufts is frequently identified with internationalism and its study abroad program.Kantrowitz, Barbara. ["America's Hot 25 Schools."] Newsweek Kaplan College Guide. The university is home to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

In 1852, Charles Tufts founded Tufts College and donated the land for the campus on Walnut Hill, the highest point in Medford. Tufts said that he wanted to set a "light on the hill." Originally affiliated with the Universalist Church, Tufts is now non-sectarian. The name was changed to "Tufts University" in 1954, although the corporate name remains "the Trustees of Tufts College." In the late 1970s, the French-American nutritionist Jean Mayer became president of Tufts and, through a series of rapid acquisitions, proceeded to transform the school from a small New England liberal arts college to an international research university.Gittleman, Sol. (November 2004) An Entrepreneurial University: The Transformation Of Tufts, 1976-2002. Tufts University, ISBN 1584654163.

Contents

Institution

Tufts employs 3,500 people, with 8,500 students from across the U.S. and more than 100 countries attending classes on the university's three campuses in Massachusetts (Boston, Medford/Somerville and Grafton) and one in Talloires, France. In addition, the university is affiliated with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and with the New England Conservatory of Music.

Statements by the university point to active citizenship, interdisciplinary programs, and an international focus as distinguishing characteristics. Tufts ranks 27 on the [Best Colleges 2006] list by U.S. News & World Report, and the school has been recognized as a "Doctoral/Research Extensive" institution by the Carnegie Foundation. Tufts is frequently identified as a Little Ivy, due to its academic reputation.

Admissions

Admission to Tufts University is highly competitive and extremely selective;[USNews.com: America's Best Colleges: Tufts University]. Accessed July 10, 2006. U.S. News classifies Tufts' selectivity as "most selective." in 2006, the university accepted just under 26% of roughly 15,300 applications to its undergraduate class of 2010.http://taap.tufts.edu/news/classof2010.asp

In selecting the class of 2011, Tufts added experimental criteria to the application process for undergraduates to test "creativity and other non-academic factors." Dean of Arts and Science Robert Sternberg said that the approach "significantly increases the ability of colleges to predict college success." Calling Tufts the "first major university to try such a departure from the norm", Inside Higher Ed notes that Tufts continues to consider SAT scores and other traditional criteria.Jaschik, Scott (2006). [A "Rainbow" Approach to Admissions]. Inside Higher Ed, July 6, 2006.McAnerny, Kelly (2005). [From Sternberg, a new take on what makes kids Tufts-worthy]. Tufts Daily, November 15, 2005.

Organization

Tufts is comprised of eight schools, shown here with date of establishment:

In 1910, the Jackson College for Women was established as a coordinate college adjacent to the Tufts campus. Jackson College was later integrated with Tufts College in 1980, but is recognized in the name of the undergraduate arts and sciences division, the "College of Liberal Arts and Jackson College." The campus land that was Jackson College is in the city of Somerville. Women continued to receive their diplomas from Jackson College until 2002.

The Experimental College, ubiquitously called the "Ex College," was created on the Medford campus in 1964 as a proving ground for "innovative," experimental, and interdisciplinary curricula and courses. The college is governed by a board of five students and five faculty members who set policy and select courses. By far, the most prominent feature of the Ex College is EPIIC, a year-long program begun in 1985 to immerse students in a global issue, culminating in an annual symposium of scholars and experts from the field.

The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service was founded in 2000 with the help of a $10 million gift from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, and was originally named the University College of Citizenship and Public Service (UCCPS). In 2006 the school was renamed after a $40 million dollar gift from Jonathan Tisch. The professed mission of the Tisch College is "to educate for active citizenship." The Tisch College has been called the "most ambitious attempt by any research university to make public service part of its core academic mission" [link].

Campuses

Tufts has four campuses.

Medford/Somerville

The main undergraduate campus is on Walnut Hill, legally located in Medford, Massachusetts. In actuality, the campus is cut by the Medford/Somerville line; areas of campus are informally called "uphill" and "downhill" by the student body. The main administrative offices of the university are housed in Ballou Hall, the oldest building on the hill. University buildings extend into the surrounding neighborhoods, as well as nearby Davis Square. The Fletcher School is also located on the Medford campus.

Prominent exterior spaces on the campus include the Academic Quad, the Rez Quad, the President's Lawn, and Professors Row, which has been declared a historic site by the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission. The hill is often cited for having two of the three best views in the greater Boston area of the city skyline.

Boston

The medical school is located on a campus in Boston adjacent to Tufts-NEMC, a 451-bed academic medical institution that is home to both a full-service hospital for adults and the Floating Hospital for Children. All full time Tufts-NEMC physicians hold faculty appointments at Tufts.

The newest addition to the Boston campus is the $65 million, nine-story Jaharis Family Center for Biomedical and Nutrition Sciences.

Grafton

The veterinary school is located in Grafton, Massachusetts, west of Boston on a 634-acre campus. Its facilities include the Tufts-New England Veterinary Medical Center's Hospital for Large Animals, the Foster Hospital for small animals; the Cornelius Thibeault Equine Outpatient Clinic, the Issam Fares Equine Sports Medicine Program, the Harrington Oncology Program, the Amelia Peabody Pavilion, the Jean Mayer Administration Building, the Franklin M. Loew Veterinary Medical Education Center, the Tufts Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, and a 250-acre working farm. The school also maintains the Ambulatory Farm Clinic in Woodstock, Connecticut and the Tufts Laboratory at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole on Cape Cod.

Tufts' campus in Talloires, France, an 11th century Benedictine priory
Tufts' campus in Talloires, France, an 11th century Benedictine priory

Talloires

Tufts maintains a satellite campus in Talloires, France at the Tufts European Center, a former Benedictine priory built in the 11th century. The priory was purchased in 1958 by Donald MacJannet and his wife Charlotte and used as a summer camp site for several years before the MacJannets gave the campus to Tufts in 1978. Each year the center hosts a number of summer study programs, and enrolled students live with local families. The site is frequently the host of international conferences and summits.

Student life, culture, and sports

The cannon
Enlarge
The cannon

The school colors of Tufts University are brown and blue. The shade of brown is generally called chocolate brown, and the blue is variously described as between light and middle blue, or dusty sky blue. Though this color combination was chosen by the student body in 1876, the colors were not made officially the colors of the school until 1960, when the Trustees voted on the matter.

The Tufts school mascot is Jumbo the elephant, in honor of a major donation from circus owner P.T. Barnum in 1882. While Barnum gave the skeleton of the animal to the American Museum of Natural History, the stuffed remains of Jumbo were put on display in the basement of Barnum Hall until the building burned down in 1974. The alleged ashes of Jumbo currently reside in a peanut butter jar in the athletic director's office; the elephant's tail is also preserved. A large plaster-statue elephant, Jumbo II, now sits on the academic quad.

Football players pose with Jumbo in 1935. Jumbo was destroyed by fire in 1975.
Enlarge
Football players pose with Jumbo in 1935. Jumbo was destroyed by fire in 1975.

A fixture on the Medford campus is a replica of a cannon taken from the deck of the U.S.S. Constitution. The city of Medford donated the cannon to the university in 1954. Since 1977, it has been used by student groups and individual students who paint messages on the cannon under the cover of night. Painting the cannon is a competitive activity. Students must guard their handiwork or run the risk of having their message painted over by a rival group. Over the years, the cannon has sported political messages, rallying cries for athletic teams, birthday greetings, and even a wedding proposal.

Traditions

On the first night of reading period during the fall semester, several hundred students let off stress and steam by stripping and running around the Rez Quad in the Naked Quad Run. Most students run naked, while many wear body paint or costumes. The event attracts many Tufts students to participate or watch as well as members of the surrounding community. A strong police presence is always on hand. In 2003, the Tufts Community Union Senate introduced the simultaneous Nighttime Quad Reception as a way to legitimize and help improve safety at the event.

A concert known as Spring Fling takes place in the spring semester immediately before final exams on the President's Lawn; acts over the past several years have included The Roots, Less than Jake, and Tufts alumni Guster.

The night before Spring Fling, the Tuftonia's Day fireworks take place on the Rez Quad.

The [Tufts Mountain Club] famously "pumpkins" the campus on Halloween night, placing pumpkins in prominent and increasingly absurd locations such as atop buildings and statues. Students and faculty awake to the unique decor the next morning. Although the ritual is over 75 years old, the TMC has never officially taken credit for it.

Student government

Media and campus publications

Community service organizations

Musical groups

Tufts notably has an active and competitive a cappella scene, being home to numerous prestigious a cappella groups that (somewhat humorously) each lay claim to a particular niche of Tufts culture.

Athletics

right Tufts is a member of the Division III National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), which includes Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Trinity, Williams, and Wesleyan. Tufts distinguishes itself from other Division III schools by competing against some Division I teams from Boston College, Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton. Tufts, like other Division III schools, does not offer athletic scholarships. Most teams are Division III with the exception of men's and women's squash teams and the coed and women's sailing teams.

Tufts' Co-Ed and Women's Sailing Team is its only Division I sport. The Tufts Sailing team won the 2001 Inter-collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) Dinghy National Championship, and won more championships in the 1990s than any other team. Sailing is a two-season sport and the team enters about 90 regattas in the fall and 60 in the spring. Recent sailing alumni have competed for Olympic bids and gone on to sail in competitive events like America's Cup.

The Tufts football program is one of the oldest in the country. The 1,000th game in team history was played during the 2006 season. Some historians point [link] to a Tufts versus Harvard game in 1875 as the first between two American colleges using American football rules. Discussion of the historic game and its place in the evolution of football was featured in the Boston Globe and on ESPN.

History

Charles Tufts was the donor of the land which Tufts University now occupies on the Medford-Somerville line. The twenty-acre plot, given to the Universalist church on the condition that it be used for a college, was valued at $20,000 and located on one of the highest hills in the Boston area, Walnut Hill. In 1852, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts chartered Tufts College. The original act of incorporation noted the college should promote "virtue and piety and learning in such of the languages and liberal and useful arts as shall be recommended." Having been one of the biggest influences in the establishment of the College, Hosea Ballou II became the first president in 1853.

P.T. Barnum was one of the earliest benefactors of Tufts College, and Barnum Hall was constructed in 1884 with funds donated by him. The building, initially known as the Barnum Museum of Natural History, was intended to house his collection of animal specimens, and it featured the stuffed hide of Jumbo the elephant after his death. On April 14, 1975, a fire that began in faulty wiring in a refrigeration unit in the building gutted the Barnum Museum. The collection housed in the building was completely lost, including numerous animal specimens, Barnum's desk and bust, and the stuffed hide of Jumbo.

On July 15, 1892, the Board of Trustees voted to admit women to Tufts College [link].

The university remained in relative obscurity until the presidency of Jean Mayer began in 1976. Mayer was, by all accounts, some combination of "charming, witty, duplicitous, ambitious, brilliant, intellectual, opportunistic, generous, vain, slippery, loyal, possessed of an inner standard of excellence, and charismatic" [link]. Mayer established Tufts' veterinary, nutrition, and biomedical schools and acquired the Grafton and Talloires campuses, at the same time lifting the university out of its crippling financial situation. During this period, the federal government established the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts.

Financially, the university has received the three largest donations in its history over the past year. On 4 November 2005, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam donated $100 million to Tufts to establish the Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund [link]. On 12 May 2006, Jonathan Tisch gave $40 million to endow the University College of Citizenship and Public Service, which now bears his name [link].

Notable alumni and staff

Tufts in popular culture

External links

References


Tufts University Seal TUFTS UNIVERSITY
Academics Undergraduate/Graduate Colleges and Schools
School of Arts and Sciences • School of Engineering • Experimental College • Tisch College

Graduate/Professional Colleges and Schools
School of Medicine • Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences • Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine • Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy • Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy • School of Dental Medicine


 

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