User:J. Finkelstein/Sandbox/Tufts University

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Tufts University
Seal of Tufts University
Motto Pax et Lux
(Peace and Light)
Established 1852
Type Private
Endowment $1.2 billion USD[1]
President Lawrence S. Bacow
Provost Jamshed Bharucha
Faculty 583
Undergraduates 4,900
Postgraduates 4,300
Location Medford/Somerville, MA, USA
Campus Urban/Suburban
Colors Brown and Blue
Mascot Jumbo
Affiliations NESCAC
Website www.tufts.edu
Tufts logo

INTRODUCTION

Contents

[edit] Campus

Describe the overall shape and size of the campus. Mention any famous buildings and their architects.

The President's Lawn on the Medford/Somerville campus
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The President's Lawn on the Medford/Somerville campus

[edit] Medford campus

The Medford/Somerville campus on Walnut Hill houses the undergraduate campus and university administration. Administrative offices of the university are centered on Ballou Hall, the oldest building on the hill, and extend into the surrounding neighborhoods and 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.[citation needed]

[edit] Boston campus

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.

[edit] Grafton campus

The veterinary school is located in Grafton, Massachusetts, west of Boston on a 634-acre campus. 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.

[edit] International facilities

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

Tufts has 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.

[edit] History

Describe the history of the college/university, including noteworthy milestones in its development.

Seal of Tufts College, c. 1943
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Seal of Tufts College, c. 1943

Charles Tufts was the donor of the land the 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. 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 the Barnum Museum of Natural History was constructed in 1884 with funds donated by him. On April 14, 1975, fire gutted Barnum Hall; the collection housed in the building was completely lost, including numerous animal specimens, Barnum's desk and bust, and the stuffed hide of Jumbo the elephant.

On July 15, 1892, the Board of Trustees voted to admit women to Tufts College.[1]

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".[2] 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.

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.[3] On 12 May 2006, Jonathan Tisch gave $40 million to endow the University College of Citizenship and Public Service, which now bears his name.[4]

[edit] Organization

Mention the administration, including leading officials. If this college/university has a special organizational structure, such as a residential college system, then it should be mentioned here. Then, in bullet point form, list the schools, colleges, etc. of this university. If appropriate, also list the faculties and departments at the university. If there is a special course system or requisites for enrollment, mention them here, too. If the university is part of a larger system (as in University of California), mention this connection and provide requisite links.

FACULTIES AND DEPARTMENTS SPECIAL COURSE SYSTEM REQUISITES FOR ENROLLMENT

[edit] Admissions

Admission to Tufts University is highly competitive and extremely selective;[5] in 2006, the university accepted 25% of roughly 15,300 applications to its undergraduate class of 2010.[6]

In selecting the class of 2011, Dean of Arts and Sciences Robert Sternberg added experimental criteria to the application process for undergraduates to test "creativity and other non-academic factors." Calling it the "first major university to try such a departure from the norm," Inside Higher Ed notes that Tufts continues to consider the SAT and other traditional criteria.[7][8]

[edit] Colleges

Tufts is comprised of eight schools, including:

The Jackson College for Women, established in 1910 as a coordinate college adjacent to the Tufts campus, was 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, often 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 Experimental 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 "to educate for active citizenship" with the help of a $100 million gift from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam. In 2006 the school was renamed after a $40 million dollar gift from Jonathan Tisch. The Tisch College has been called the "most ambitious attempt by any research university to make public service part of its core academic mission." [9]

[edit] Students and faculty

State the number (and any other useful statistics) of the students. Distinguish between undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students; also state the number of faculty members. Distinguish between tenure/nontenured, full- and part-time (if possible).

Tufts employs 3,500 people (MOVE ME TO FACULTY), with 8,500 students from across the United States 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.

Tufts is currently ranked 27 on the America's Best Colleges 2007 list by U.S. News & World Report, and the school has been recognized as a "Doctoral/Research Extensive" institution by the Carnegie Foundation. The media often refers to Tufts as a "Little Ivy" or one of the "New Ivies."[10] In the Princeton Review's 2007 Best 361 Colleges, Tufts was named #7 in a list of the 20 schools in the country where students are happiest.

[edit] Sports, clubs, and traditions

Mention the sports team(s) of the college/university and what is notable about them. Here is also a good place to mention specific traditions of the college/university, like students' union activities, a student newspaper, fraternities, regular activities, etc. The heading may be changed accordingly in regard to the importance of sports, clubs, traditions, students' unions etc. For example, alternative headings could be Students' Union, Sports and Traditions or Students' Union Activities.

[edit] Sports

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 nearby Division I schools such Boston College, Dartmouth, and Harvard. Tufts, like other Division III schools, does not offer athletic scholarships. Men's and women's squash and coed and women's sailing are the only Division I sports at the school.

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. Historians point [2] 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.

The Famous Tufts Cannon
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The Famous Tufts 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.

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 wedding proposals.

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

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.

The student body of the undergraduate population is known as the Tufts Community Union (TCU). TCU government consists of three major branches: the TCU Senate, the TCU Judiciary (TCUJ), and the TCU Elections Commission (ECOM).


[edit] Tufts Competition & Performance Dance Teams

At Tufts, there is an extensive amount of community, social and academic involvement from students of all types of ethnic backgrounds.

Tufts Dance Collective (TDC)

Spirit of Color (SOC)

TURBO - Break Dancing Group

Tufts Ballroom Dancing Team


The following two Tufts Indian dance teams, perform two different forms of traditional, yet fast-paced and energetic Indian dances; Garba & Bhangra. The South Asian cultural programs at Tufts -which involve more than just these two Indian types of dance teams- are supported through the Tufts Association of South Asians (T.A.S.A.), one of the largest cultural-related student organizations at Tufts, and an excellent example of why Tufts is considered a diverse University.


Tufts University Garba Team:

The Tufts Garba Team is an audition-based dance team, typically comprised of 14-16 male and female students. The Tufts Garba team exhibits, performs and competes at various colleges and events nation-wide.

Garba is a high-energy traditional form of Indian dance originating from the Gujurat region which is religious (Hindu) in nature and is typically performed during the Hindu religious 9-day festival called, Navrati, which is celebrated during the time period between the end of September and the beginning of October. Garba is the type of dance formed from the merger of the Raas or Dandiya style, which is the term used to describe the dancing that takes place during which the dancets dance with and twirl sticks called "Dandiyas" that range in length from 1.5 to 2 feet.

The Tufts Garba team's record at recent major collegiate Garba competitions is the following:

Raas Chaos 2002 (Washington, D.C.) - 1st Place

Garbafest 2003 (Boston) - 1st Place

Dandia Dhamaka 2004 (Michigan) - 3rd Place


Tufts University Bhangra Team:

The Tufts Bhangra Team is an audition-based dance team, typically comprised of 14-16 male and female students. The Tufts Bhangra team exhibits, performs and competes at various colleges and events nation-wide.

The Bhangra dance form is fast-paced and exciting type of Indian dance which originates from the Punjab region of India. Unlike Garba which incorporates the use of the sticks, called "Dandiyas", Bhangra is very much influenced by signifant hand and feet movement, especially from the arms and shoulders. Bhangra uses music, singing and Indian types of instruments, like the dhol drum and the iktar. More cultural/region-based, Bhangra is not not influenced by relgious festivals, and is traditionally performed in India to celebrate the harvest and convey happiness and love.

The Tufts Bhangra team's record at recent major collegiate Bhangra competitions is the following:

Fusion, Detroit - 2nd Place

Blast, Boston - 2nd Place

BBC 2005, Boston - 2nd Place

Image:TUbhangra.jpg
Tufts University Bhangra dance team

[edit] Traditions

On the first night of reading period during the fall semester, several hundred students let off 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. 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.


[edit] Clubs

students' union activities, a student newspaper

[edit] A cappella groups

  • Beelzebubs, all-male a cappella
  • Amalgamates, coed a cappella
  • Shir Appeal, Jewish coed a cappella
  • Jackson Jills, all-female a cappella
  • sQ!, coed a cappella
  • Essence, all female a cappella, R&B and Gospel repertoire

[edit] Media and publications

  • The Tufts Daily, 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 university.
  • The Primary Source, Tufts' conservative journal.
  • The Tufts Observer, a weekly newsmagazine founded in 1895 and the oldest student organization on campus.
  • The Zamboni, a humor and satire magazine.
  • The Tufts Traveler, a travel journal founded in 2005.
  • WMFO (91.5 FM Medford), freeform radio operated by students and community volunteers since 1970.
  • TUTV, the campus television station operated by Tufts students in partnership with the Experimental College.
  • JumboCast, a student-run broadcast group that specializes in streaming Tufts events live over the internet via webcast.
  • Hemispheres (magazine), an undergraduate journal dedicated to international relations in the United States founded in 1976.
  • The Public Journal, an alternative literary magazine founded in 2005 which focuses on publishing found literature.

[edit] Traditions

regular activities

[edit] Noted alumni

Bullet list of Alumni that are notable/famous. Mention the graduation date and degree and give a short description why they are famous.

[edit] Political leaders

[edit] Entrepreneurs and business leaders

[edit] Actors, film, and media

[edit] Literature and arts

[edit] Academic leaders

[edit] Athletes

  • Marcellus Rolle, kicker, NESCAC all-time leader for field goals made in a season (10)
  • Richard Hashim, 1988 US Squash Champion
  • Jennifer Toomey, runner
  • Julia Brenta, softball pitcher, 15-3 record during junior and senior years; best in Tufts history (we think)

[edit] Noted faculty

Bullet list of active and former members of faculty that are notable. If they are alumni/alumnae, mention them here in parenthesis, including the degree and graduation date. For all give a short description why they are famous.

  • Robert Sternberg, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and eminent psychologist, President of the APA
  • Kenneth I. Kaitin, Head of the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development.
  • Tadatoshi Akiba, mathematics professor (1972-1986), Japanese politician and activist
  • Jody Azzouni, logician, philosopher of mathematics
  • Hugo A. Bedau, ethicist, specialist on the ethical implications of the death penalty
  • Jay Cantor, author, screenwriter
  • Allan M. Cormack, physicist, Nobel Prize recipient, inventor of the CAT scan
  • Daniel C. Dennett, philosopher, author of Consciousness Explained
  • Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, History's Renaissance Man
  • Margaret Henderson Floyd, Art Historian and author of "Henry Hobson Richardson" and other books on architectural history
  • Ray Jackendoff, linguist, author of Foundations of Language
  • Alfred Church Lane, geologist
  • William Moulton Marston, d 1947, taught briefly at Tufts in the 1920s, creator of Wonder Woman
  • Adil Najam, international negotiation and diplomacy
  • Chris Rogers, Father of ROBOLAB
  • Martin Sherwin, Walter S. Dickson professor of English and American History, Pulitzer Prize winner for biography on J. Robert Oppenheimer
  • John H. Sununu, former Dean of the College of Engineering, conservative U.S. politician
  • Loring Tu, world-renowned mathemetician
  • Alexander Vilenkin, leading theoretical physicist
  • Haruki Murakami, Japanese author
  • Arthur W. Winston, IEEE President, 2004. IEEE Past-president, 2005
  • David L. Kaplan, biomedical engineer, leader in the fields of biomaterials and tissue engineering

[edit] Tufts in popular culture

  • Hannah, the heroine in Curtis Sittenfeld's second novel, The Man of My Dreams, goes to Tufts. Interestingly, the heroine in Sittenfeld's first novel, Prep, was rejected from Tufts.
  • Pete and Berg, the lead characters in the sitcom Two Guys and a Girl met as undergraduates at Tufts.
  • The gate to the President's Lawn was featured in the opening credits of the sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
  • Elaine Benes, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the sitcom Seinfeld, mentions that she attended Tufts, calling it her "safety school."
  • Scott Adler, recurring character in Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series. Eventual U.S. Secretary of State, Adler graduated first in his class at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
  • Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh, title character from Crossing Jordan, played by Jill Hennessy. The fictional Boston medical examiner graduated from Tufts.
  • Amy Abbott on the WB drama Everwood was rejected from Tufts in an episode of the show.
  • Ken Erdedy, character in the novel Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It is likely that the fictional marijuana addict and resident of Ennet House attended Tufts University, evidenced among other things by the memorabilia in his household (p.25, 360, 362).
  • Dr. Jennifer Melfi, psychiatrist to Tony Soprano on The Sopranos graduated from Tufts Medical School.
  • Julie Merkel, a cutthroat prep school student in Cheats (film), a 2002 comedy starring Mary Tyler Moore, wants desperately to attend Tufts.
  • Kenny, a Stuckeybowl employee on the TV show Ed, graduated from Tufts (and, when asked about it by Ed, replied, "It's in Massachusetts").
  • Jenna Blake in the Body of Evidence mystery novels attends Somerset University, a fictional version of the Tufts campus.
  • Susan Silverman of Robert B. Parker's Spenser mystery series teaches at "Taft University," a thinly-veiled stand-in for Tufts, and Parker uses the Taft setting in several books.
  • Toyota ran an ad in the late 1970s/early 1980s that portrayed a student setting off for college in his new Toyota and driving cross-country from his home in southern California. The ad finished with his triumphant arrival in front of Eaton Hall. For years, this commercial was shown before all campus movies.
  • Some outdoor footage of the Tufts campus was shot in fall of 1967 for the 1968 movie Charly starring Cliff Robertson and Claire Bloom. The movie is based on the short story "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes and is about a slow man made into a genius — temporarily.


[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Russonello, Giovanni. Endowment is thriving, survey demonstrates. (2006). Tufts Daily, 5 October 2006.
  2. ^ Gittleman, Sol. "The Accidental President." Tufts Magazine, Winter 2005.
  3. ^ Hopkins, jim. "Ebay founder takes lead in social entrepreneurship." USA Today, 3 November 2005.
  4. ^ Tisch announces $40 million gift to Tufts University. Boston Globe. 12 May 2006.
  5. ^ USNews.com: America's Best Colleges: Tufts University. Accessed July 10, 2006. U.S. News classifies Tufts' selectivity as "most selective."
  6. ^ http://taap.tufts.edu/news/classof2010.asp
  7. ^ Jaschik, Scott (2006). A "Rainbow" Approach to Admissions. Inside Higher Ed, July 6, 2006.
  8. ^ McAnerny, Kelly (2005). From Sternberg, a new take on what makes kids Tufts-worthy. Tufts Daily, November 15, 2005.
  9. ^ Bombardieri, Marcella. At Tufts, civic engagement stretches across the globe. Boston Globe, 14 March 2004.
  10. ^ Kantrowitz, Barbara (2006). America's 25 New Elite 'Ivies'. Newsweek, August 21-28, 2006.

[edit] External links

 Wikimedia Commons has media related to:



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
Presidents of Tufts University
Reverend Hosea Ballou II (1853–1861) • Reverend Alonzo Ames Miner (1862–1875) • Reverend Elmer Hewitt Capen (1875–1905) • Reverend Frederick W. Hamilton (1905–1912) • William Leslie Hooper (1919–1914) • Hermon Carey Bumpus (1914–1919) • John Albert Cousens (1919–1937) • Leonard Carmichael (1938–1952) • Nils Vngve Wessell (1953–1966) • Burton Crosby Hallowell (1967–1976) • Jean Mayer (1976–1992) • John DiBiaggio (1992–2001) • Lawrence S. Bacow (2001–)
Art Institute of Boston • Babson • Bentley • Berklee College of Music • Boston Architectural College • Boston College • Boston Conservatory • Boston University • Brandeis • Cambridge College • Curry • Eastern Nazarene • Emerson • Emmanuel • Harvard • Hellenic • Lesley • Mass. Bay C.C. • Mass. College of Art • Mass. College of Pharmacy • M.I.T. • Mount Ida • New England Conservatory • N.E. School of Law • Northeastern • Olin • Pine Manor • Regis • School of the MFA • Simmons • Suffolk • Tufts • UMass Boston • Wellesley • Wentworth • Wheelock
New England Small College Athletic Conference
Amherst • Bates • Bowdoin • Colby • Connecticut College • Hamilton • Middlebury • Trinity • Tufts • Wesleyan • Williams
National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association
Army • City • Cornell • Drew • Fairleigh Dickinson • Florida • Haverford • Hunter CUNY • Johns Hopkins • Marist • Maryland College Park • New Jersey Institute of Technology • Queens CUNY • Smith • Stevens Institute of Technology • Temple • Tufts • Virginia • Virginia Tech • Yeshiva

Template:Tufts University TAAP Network, Class of 2010 Results









Tufts University is a private university in Medford/Somerville, Massachusetts, suburbs of Boston. The school emphasizes public service in all disciplines[11] and is well-known for internationalism and its study abroad programs.[12] 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, transformed the school from a small New England liberal arts college to a world-renowned Nobel-Prize winning research university.[13]

[edit] Institution

Tufts employs 3,500 people, with 8,500 students from across the United States 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.

Tufts is currently ranked 27 on the America's Best Colleges 2007 list by U.S. News & World Report, and the school has been recognized as a "Doctoral/Research Extensive" institution by the Carnegie Foundation. The media often refers to Tufts as a "Little Ivy" or one of the "New Ivies."[14] In the Princeton Review's 2007 Best 361 Colleges, Tufts was named #7 in a list of the 20 schools in the country where students are happiest.

Ballou Hall, seat of the Tufts administration
Enlarge
Ballou Hall, seat of the Tufts administration

[edit] Admissions

Admission to Tufts University is highly competitive and extremely selective;[15] in 2006, the university accepted 25% of roughly 15,300 applications to its undergraduate class of 2010.[16]

In selecting the class of 2011, Dean of Arts and Sciences Robert Sternberg added experimental criteria to the application process for undergraduates to test "creativity and other non-academic factors." Calling it the "first major university to try such a departure from the norm," Inside Higher Ed notes that Tufts continues to consider the SAT and other traditional criteria.[17][18]

[edit] Organization

Tufts is comprised of eight schools, including:

The Jackson College for Women, established in 1910 as a coordinate college adjacent to the Tufts campus, was 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, often 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 Experimental 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 "to educate for active citizenship" with the help of a $100 million gift from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam. In 2006 the school was renamed after a $40 million dollar gift from Jonathan Tisch. The Tisch College has been called the "most ambitious attempt by any research university to make public service part of its core academic mission." [19]

[edit] Campuses

The President's Lawn on the Medford/Somerville campus
Enlarge
The President's Lawn on the Medford/Somerville campus

[edit] Greater Boston

The Medford/Somerville campus on Walnut Hill houses the undergraduate campus and university administration. Administrative offices of the university are centered on Ballou Hall, the oldest building on the hill, and extend into the surrounding neighborhoods and 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.[citation needed]

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 veterinary school is located in Grafton, Massachusetts, west of Boston on a 634-acre campus. 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.

[edit] Satellite facilities

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

Tufts has 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.

[edit] Culture and Student Life

The Famous Tufts Cannon
Enlarge
The Famous Tufts 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.

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 wedding proposals.

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.

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.

The student body of the undergraduate population is known as the Tufts Community Union (TCU). TCU government consists of three major branches: the TCU Senate, the TCU Judiciary (TCUJ), and the TCU Elections Commission (ECOM).


[edit] Tufts Competition & Performance Dance Teams

At Tufts, there is an extensive amount of community, social and academic involvement from students of all types of ethnic backgrounds.

Tufts Dance Collective (TDC)

Spirit of Color (SOC)

TURBO - Break Dancing Group

Tufts Ballroom Dancing Team


The following two Tufts Indian dance teams, perform two different forms of traditional, yet fast-paced and energetic Indian dances; Garba & Bhangra. The South Asian cultural programs at Tufts -which involve more than just these two Indian types of dance teams- are supported through the Tufts Association of South Asians (T.A.S.A.), one of the largest cultural-related student organizations at Tufts, and an excellent example of why Tufts is considered a diverse University.


Tufts University Garba Team:

The Tufts Garba Team is an audition-based dance team, typically comprised of 14-16 male and female students. The Tufts Garba team exhibits, performs and competes at various colleges and events nation-wide.

Garba is a high-energy traditional form of Indian dance originating from the Gujurat region which is religious (Hindu) in nature and is typically performed during the Hindu religious 9-day festival called, Navrati, which is celebrated during the time period between the end of September and the beginning of October. Garba is the type of dance formed from the merger of the Raas or Dandiya style, which is the term used to describe the dancing that takes place during which the dancets dance with and twirl sticks called "Dandiyas" that range in length from 1.5 to 2 feet.

The Tufts Garba team's record at recent major collegiate Garba competitions is the following:

Raas Chaos 2002 (Washington, D.C.) - 1st Place

Garbafest 2003 (Boston) - 1st Place

Dandia Dhamaka 2004 (Michigan) - 3rd Place


Tufts University Bhangra Team:

The Tufts Bhangra Team is an audition-based dance team, typically comprised of 14-16 male and female students. The Tufts Bhangra team exhibits, performs and competes at various colleges and events nation-wide.

The Bhangra dance form is fast-paced and exciting type of Indian dance which originates from the Punjab region of India. Unlike Garba which incorporates the use of the sticks, called "Dandiyas", Bhangra is very much influenced by signifant hand and feet movement, especially from the arms and shoulders. Bhangra uses music, singing and Indian types of instruments, like the dhol drum and the iktar. More cultural/region-based, Bhangra is not not influenced by relgious festivals, and is traditionally performed in India to celebrate the harvest and convey happiness and love.

The Tufts Bhangra team's record at recent major collegiate Bhangra competitions is the following:

Fusion, Detroit - 2nd Place

Blast, Boston - 2nd Place

BBC 2005, Boston - 2nd Place

Image:TUbhangra.jpg
Tufts University Bhangra dance team

[edit] Traditions

On the first night of reading period during the fall semester, several hundred students let off 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. 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.

[edit] Campus media and 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 Primary Source, Tufts' Journal of Conservative Thought.
  • 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 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 Public Journal is an alternative literary magazine, founded in 2005, which focuses on publishing found literature.

[edit] A cappella 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.

[edit] 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 nearby Division I schools such Boston College, Dartmouth, and Harvard. Tufts, like other Division III schools, does not offer athletic scholarships. Men's and women's squash and coed and women's sailing are the only Division I sports at the school.

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. Historians point [4] 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.

[edit] History

Seal of Tufts College, c. 1943
Enlarge
Seal of Tufts College, c. 1943

Charles Tufts was the donor of the land the 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. 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 the Barnum Museum of Natural History was constructed in 1884 with funds donated by him. On April 14, 1975, fire gutted Barnum Hall; the collection housed in the building was completely lost, including numerous animal specimens, Barnum's desk and bust, and the stuffed hide of Jumbo the elephant.

On July 15, 1892, the Board of Trustees voted to admit women to Tufts College.[5]

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".[20] 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.

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.[21] On 12 May 2006, Jonathan Tisch gave $40 million to endow the University College of Citizenship and Public Service, which now bears his name.[22]

[edit] Notable alumni and staff

Main article: List of Tufts University people

[edit] Tufts in popular culture

  • Hannah, the heroine in Curtis Sittenfeld's second novel, The Man of My Dreams, goes to Tufts. Interestingly, the heroine in Sittenfeld's first novel, Prep, was rejected from Tufts.
  • Pete and Berg, the lead characters in the sitcom Two Guys and a Girl met as undergraduates at Tufts.
  • The gate to the President's Lawn was featured in the opening credits of the sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
  • Elaine Benes, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the sitcom Seinfeld, mentions that she attended Tufts, calling it her "safety school."
  • Scott Adler, recurring character in Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series. Eventual U.S. Secretary of State, Adler graduated first in his class at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
  • Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh, title character from Crossing Jordan, played by Jill Hennessy. The fictional Boston medical examiner graduated from Tufts.
  • Amy Abbott on the WB drama Everwood was rejected from Tufts in an episode of the show.
  • Ken Erdedy, character in the novel Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It is likely that the fictional marijuana addict and resident of Ennet House attended Tufts University, evidenced among other things by the memorabilia in his household (p.25, 360, 362).
  • Dr. Jennifer Melfi, psychiatrist to Tony Soprano on The Sopranos graduated from Tufts Medical School.
  • Julie Merkel, a cutthroat prep school student in Cheats (film), a 2002 comedy starring Mary Tyler Moore, wants desperately to attend Tufts.
  • Kenny, a Stuckeybowl employee on the TV show Ed, graduated from Tufts (and, when asked about it by Ed, replied, "It's in Massachusetts").
  • Jenna Blake in the Body of Evidence mystery novels attends Somerset University, a fictional version of the Tufts campus.
  • Susan Silverman of Robert B. Parker's Spenser mystery series teaches at "Taft University," a thinly-veiled stand-in for Tufts, and Parker uses the Taft setting in several books.
  • Toyota ran an ad in the late 1970s/early 1980s that portrayed a student setting off for college in his new Toyota and driving cross-country from his home in southern California. The ad finished with his triumphant arrival in front of Eaton Hall. For years, this commercial was shown before all campus movies.
  • Some outdoor footage of the Tufts campus was shot in fall of 1967 for the 1968 movie Charly starring Cliff Robertson and Claire Bloom. The movie is based on the short story "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes and is about a slow man made into a genius — temporarily.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Russonello, Giovanni. Endowment is thriving, survey demonstrates. (2006). Tufts Daily, 5 October 2006.
  2. ^ Gittleman, Sol. "The Accidental President." Tufts Magazine, Winter 2005.
  3. ^ Hopkins, jim. "Ebay founder takes lead in social entrepreneurship." USA Today, 3 November 2005.
  4. ^ Tisch announces $40 million gift to Tufts University. Boston Globe. 12 May 2006.
  5. ^ USNews.com: America's Best Colleges: Tufts University. Accessed July 10, 2006. U.S. News classifies Tufts' selectivity as "most selective."
  6. ^ http://taap.tufts.edu/news/classof2010.asp
  7. ^ Jaschik, Scott (2006). A "Rainbow" Approach to Admissions. Inside Higher Ed, July 6, 2006.
  8. ^ McAnerny, Kelly (2005). From Sternberg, a new take on what makes kids Tufts-worthy. Tufts Daily, November 15, 2005.
  9. ^ Bombardieri, Marcella. At Tufts, civic engagement stretches across the globe. Boston Globe, 14 March 2004.
  10. ^ Kantrowitz, Barbara (2006). America's 25 New Elite 'Ivies'. Newsweek, August 21-28, 2006.
  11. ^ Bacow, Lawrence S. "How Universities Can Teach Public Service." The Boston Globe. 15 October 2005.
  12. ^ Kantrowitz, Barbara. "America's Hot 25 Schools." Newsweek Kaplan College Guide.
  13. ^ Gittleman, Sol. (November 2004) An Entrepreneurial University: The Transformation Of Tufts, 1976-2002. Tufts University, ISBN 1-58465-416-3.
  14. ^ Kantrowitz, Barbara (2006). America's 25 New Elite 'Ivies'. Newsweek, August 21-28, 2006.
  15. ^ USNews.com: America's Best Colleges: Tufts University. Accessed July 10, 2006. U.S. News classifies Tufts' selectivity as "most selective."
  16. ^ http://taap.tufts.edu/news/classof2010.asp
  17. ^ Jaschik, Scott (2006). A "Rainbow" Approach to Admissions. Inside Higher Ed, July 6, 2006.
  18. ^ McAnerny, Kelly (2005). From Sternberg, a new take on what makes kids Tufts-worthy. Tufts Daily, November 15, 2005.
  19. ^ Bombardieri, Marcella. At Tufts, civic engagement stretches across the globe. Boston Globe, 14 March 2004.
  20. ^ Gittleman, Sol. "The Accidental President." Tufts Magazine, Winter 2005.
  21. ^ Hopkins, jim. "Ebay founder takes lead in social entrepreneurship." USA Today, 3 November 2005.
  22. ^ Tisch announces $40 million gift to Tufts University. Boston Globe. 12 May 2006.

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