Tufts University

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{{Infobox_University |name= Tufts University |image= Image:Tufts seal.png |motto= Pax et Lux
(Peace and Light) |established= 1852 |type= Private |president= Lawrence S. Bacow |provost= Jamshed Bharucha |city= Medford/Somerville |state= MA |country= USA |undergrad= 4,900 |postgrad= 4,300 |faculty= 583 |campus= Urban/Suburban |mascot= Jumbo Image:Jumbo-logo.png |website= www.tufts.edu |endowment= US$1.05 billion |free_label= Athletics |free= 31 Varsity Teams

|footnotes= <tr colspan=2><td colspan=2>

}} Tufts University is a private university located in Medford, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. The school is frequently identified with internationalism and its study abroad program Template:Ref, and 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. Through a series of rapid acquisitions, he proceeded to transform the school from a small New England liberal arts college to an internationally-oriented research university.Template:Ref

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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.

Image:Ballou, President's Lawn, Tufts University.png

More than 98 percent of enrolling students state that they expect to pursue graduate or professional study. Approximately 40 percent of all undergraduates attending Tufts pursue course work outside the United States, and the university's language studies are both rigorous and mandatory. Research is a strong focus of curriculum.

In recent years, official statements [1] by the university have pointed to active citizenship, interdisciplinary programs, and an international focus as the distinguishing characteristics of the school. Tufts continues to advertise itself as one of only 38 private institutions to receive a Research I rating from the Carnegie Commission, although the categorization is obsolete. The school ranks 27 on the America's Best Colleges 2006 [2] list by U.S. News & World Report. Tufts is widely considered to be among the top universities in the United States; in 2006 the undergraduate school accepted roughly 25% of over 15,000 applications to their class of 2010.

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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 University 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. The professed mission of the UCCPS is "to educate for active citizenship." The University College has been called the "most ambitious attempt by any research university to make public service part of its core academic mission" [3].

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Campuses

Tufts has four campuses.

Image:Olin Hall and Rez Quad, Tufts University.jpg Image:Tufts Library.jpg

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Medford/Somerville

The main undergraduate campus is on Walnut Hill, legally located in Medford, Massachusetts. In actuality, the campus is divided 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.

The campus at one time encompassed much of the city of Somerville, until the financially-strapped university was forced to sell the majority of the land during the Great Depression. From 1863 to 1947, a brick-lined reservoir built as an emergency water supply for the city of Charlestown resided on the uphill area aptly named the Rez Quad. Until 1958, a six-hole golf course resided downhill.

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Boston

The medical school is located on a campus in the heart of 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.

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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.

Image:Talloires priory.jpg

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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.

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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.

Notably, Barnum Hall was constructed in 1884 with funds donated to Tufts College by P.T. Barnum. Barnum donated the building to house his collection of animal specimens and featured the stuffed hide of Jumbo the elephant. The building was initially known as the Barnum Museum of Natural History. 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.

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" [4]. 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.

Mayer also made the school active on the international academic scene. In October 1990, he convened twenty-two university leaders in Talloires to sign the Talloires Declaration (University Leaders for a Sustainable Future). In September 2005, President Bacow would again convene international academic leaders in the French alpine town for the adoption of the Talloires Declaration (On the Civic Roles and Social Responsibilities of Higher Education).

On November 4, 2005, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam donated $100 million to Tufts to establish the Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund [5].

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Student Life, Culture, and Sports

Image:Tufts cannon.jpg

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.

Image:Jumbo w football players.jpg

A fixture on the Medford campus is a replica of a twenty-four pound 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.

The student body at Tufts is the target of several critiques and stereotypes. Undergraduates often contend with a boilerplate description—that the student body consists mainly of "Ivy League rejects" [6].

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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. The event is unofficially recognized by the University, who sets up hay bales around the quad in order to prevent injury. A strong police presence is always on hand. In 2003, the University 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.

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Media and Campus Publications

  • The Tufts Daily is the daily student newspaper, the most prominent source of news for the last two decades. The Daily is notable for its financial independence, receiving no funding from the student activities fee.
  • The Tufts Observer, a weekly newsmagazine and the oldest student organization on campus, having been founded in 1895.
  • The Zamboni, a humor and satire magazine.
  • The Primary Source, a journal of conservative thought founded in 1982.
  • The Tufts Traveler, a travel journal founded in 2005.
  • WMFO (91.5 FM Medford) is freeform radio operated by students and community volunteers since 1970. The station broadcasts 365 days a year and operates out of Curtis Hall.
  • TUTV is the campus television station, operated by Tufts students in partnership with the Ex College and viewed throughout the Tufts campus.
  • JumboCast is a student-run broadcast group that specializes in streaming Tufts events live over the internet via webcast.
  • Hemispheres has been, since 1976, one of the few undergraduate journals dedicated to international relations in the United States.
  • The Electric Light is a weekly Tufts community affairs radio(91.5 WMFO) and television (TUTV 23) program. Past guests have included David Sutherland, Crocker Snow, Dean Robert Sternberg, Mayor Curtatone, Adriana Zavala, Sol Gittleman, Daniel Dennett, and Hurricane Katrina survivors.
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Community Service Organizations

  • The Leonard Carmichael Society is the largest student group at Tufts, an umbrella organization for community and public service projects. LCS is comprised of a volunteer corps of over 1,000 and a staff of eighty-five.
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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.

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Athletics

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. The sailing team alone is part of Division I at Tufts.

The Tufts football program is one of the oldest in the country. The 1000th game in team history was played during the 2006 season. Some historians point [7] 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.

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Notable alumni and staff

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Points of interest

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External links

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References

  1. Template:Note Kantrowitz, Barbara. "America's Hot 25 Schools." Newsweek Kaplan College Guide.
  2. Template:Note Gittleman, Sol. (November 2004) An Entrepreneurial University: The Transformation Of Tufts, 1976-2002. Tufts University, ISBN 1584654163.

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