Student life at Tufts University

The Tufts University 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 lobby 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. A large plaster-statue elephant, Jumbo II, now sits on the academic quad. The Tufts mascot is the only school mascot listed in Webster's dictionary.[1]

The school colors of Tufts University are brown and blue. The shade of brown is generally a 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 Tufts University until 1960, when the Trustees voted on the matter.

The Tufts Community Union funds a number of undergraduate student groups, and some 150 are recognized by the university. Prominent groups include the Beelzebubs, Tufts Financial Group,[2] Tufts Dance Collective, and the Amalgamates. The Leonard Carmichael Society, an umbrella organization for community and public service projects, is the largest student group at Tufts, comprising a volunteer corps of over 1,000 and a staff of eighty-five.

In The Princeton Review's 2010–2011 "Best 363 Colleges," Tufts was ranked #14 for the happiest students and Tufts' study abroad program was ranked #3 in the country.[3][4] The Princeton Review has since 2005 listed Tufts in its "Best Campus Food" category, ranking it as high as second.[5][6][7] Additionally, The Advocate ranks Tufts as one of the top 20 gay-friendly campuses.[8]

In 2009, the school banned sexual activity in dorm rooms when a roommate is present. The university may have been the first in the nation to be explicit about this type of conduct.[9]

Traditions

Painting the Cannon

A fixture on the Medford campus is a replica of a cannon taken from the deck of the USS Constitution, donated to the university by the city of Medford in 1956.[10] Since 1977, it has been used by student groups and individual students who paint advertisements, political statements, birthday greetings, and other messages on the cannon under the cover of night. Painting the cannon is a competitive activity; students must guard their handiwork or risk of having their message painted over by a rival group before dawn.[11]

Naked Quad Run

West Hall Quad Post Run T-shirt 1991-1992

The Naked Quad Run was originated by residents of West Hall and was originally known as the "West Hall Naked Quad Run". Though the exact date of its origin remains unknown. In the late 70's the run was revived by residents of Carmichael Hall but faded from the campus until it was again revived and popularized by West Hall residents in the early 1990s.

Dorm residents, such as "Quad Man", would warm up the gathering crowd below by stripping on the fire escape to loud music blasting from the upper floor windows. Once the dorm residents were themselves sufficiently 'warmed up' with alcohol, they would gather in the basement of the dorm, undress as a group, and then exit from the rear of the building, many with phone numbers painted on their back or butts.

The Naked Quad Run takes place just before fall finals, in December, and attracts hundreds of students to unwind by stripping and running a circuit around the Res Quad. Most students run naked, but some wear costumes such as capes or shrink wrap.

On March 14, 2011, President Larry Bacow announced that the Tufts Quad Run had been banned for the upcoming year due to concerns about alcohol consumption.

Spring Fling

Former Tufts president John DiBiaggio celebrating Spring Fling in 1993

Initially held in 1980, a concert known as Spring Fling takes place in the spring semester immediately before final exams on the President's Lawn. Spring Fling acts have included the following[12] (in reverse order of appearance, i.e. the headliner is listed first):

1980: Pousette Dart Band, Willie Nineger Band, Beelzebubs
1981: Pousette Dart Band, James Montgomery Band, NRBQ
1982: Clarence Clemons and the Red Bank Rockers, Chubby Checker
1983: Evelyn "Champagne" King, NRBQ, The Kool Rays
1984: The Stompers, Junior Walker and the All-Stars
1985: The Busboys, 'Til Tuesday
1986: Ministry, Scruffy the Cat, Plate O' Shrimp (the concert was held at Nine Lansdowne in Kenmore Square due to rain)
1987: The Smithereens, The Bongos, Plate O' Shrimp
1988: Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, Treat Her Right
1989: The Robert Cray Band, Ivan Neville and the Rooms, Plan B
1990: The Band, Barrence Whitfield and the Savages
1991: Cheap Trick, Heretix
1992: Blues Traveler, Shinehead, Urban Blight (the concert was held in Cousens Gymnasium due to rain)
1993: Violent Femmes, The Lemonheads, Digable Planets
1994: Fishbone, They Might Be Giants, Queen Latifah, Thumper
1995: B.B. King, Denny Dent, Brand Nubian, Buffalo Tom
1996: George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars, Violent Femmes, moe.
1997: A Tribe Called Quest, Barenaked Ladies, G. Love & Special Sauce
1998: LL Cool J, Maceo Parker, Less Than Jake, Hall's Corner Band
1999: Ben Folds Five, Cherry Poppin' Daddies, The Sugarhill Gang
2000: The Roots, Better Than Ezra, Reel Big Fish
2001: Original P, Guster, Jurassic 5, Redshift 6
2002: moe., Toots and the Maytals, Mobb Deep
2003: Busta Rhymes, Reel Big Fish (the entire event was canceled due to rain)
2004: The Roots, Less Than Jake, The Sugarhill Gang
2005: Busta Rhymes, Goldfinger, The Walkmen, The Juice (Busta's performance was canceled again due to rain)
2006: Guster, Blackalicious, The Slip, Melodesiac
2007: T.I., Lupe Fiasco, Spoon, Oxford Collapse, Ezra Furman and the Harpoons
2008: Dropkick Murphys, Common, Tea Leaf Green, FunkSoulLove
2009: Ludacris, The Decemberists, Asher Roth, The Ride, Brennavin
2010: OK Go, Drake, Sammy Adams
2011: The Roots, RJD2
2012: Lupe Fiasco, Guster, White Panda, The Rare Occasions
2013: Nelly, Yeasayer, 5 & a Dime
2014: Childish Gambino, Flosstradamus, The New Pornographers
2015: Kesha, MisterWives, LION BABE

Tuftonia's Day

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

Pumpkining

An unknown student group "pumpkins" the campus each year before Halloween, placing pumpkins in prominent and increasingly absurd locations such as atop buildings and statues. Although the ritual is over 75 years old, no organization takes credit for it.

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 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 sailing team won the 2001 Intercollegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) Dinghy National Championship and won more championships in the 1990s than any other team. Men's Squash maintains a top 20 Division I national ranking.[13] Tufts University won its first NCAA-sanctioned national team championship when the men's lacrosse team defeated Salisbury in the 2010 Division III men's lacrosse final.[14] Since then, Tufts has captured NCAA Division III National Championships in women's field hockey (2012),[15] women's softball (both 2013 and 2014),[16] men's lacrosse again (2014),[17] and men's soccer (2014).[18] Tufts teams also reached the 2008 championship game in women's field hockey[19] and the 2011 championship game in men's lacrosse.[20]

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 to a Tufts versus Harvard game in 1875 as the first game of college football between using American football rules.[21][22] The team plays at the Ellis Oval, located on the southwest corner of the campus.

In 1943, the Boston Red Sox used the Tufts athletic facilities during spring training due to gasoline rationing limiting the team's travel.[23]

Tufts was ranked amongst the top 10 universities in the nation according to the 2008 NCSA Collegiate Power Rankings. The NCSA calculates the rankings for each college/university at the NCAA Division I, II and III levels by averaging the U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup ranking, the NCAA student-athlete graduation rate of each college/university and the U.S. News & World Report rankings.[24]

Greek life

The Greek-letter organizations continued to thrive, and are to be present on campus to this day. There are currently 10 fraternities, 6 sororities, and one co-ed group. About 24% of the student body is involved in the Greek system.

Fraternities
Sororities
Co-ed Greek organizations

Campus media and publications

Most campus publications and media are funded through the Student Activities Fee distributed by the Tufts Community Union Senate. The most notable exception to this is the Tufts Daily which is entirely independent of the Senate and is published through advertising revenue. There is a wide cross section of groups producing media on campus, both popular, electronic, and academic. All groups under the Senate are represented by the Media Advocacy Board at Tufts University, which provides a media laboratory for production of print publications.[25] Groups are arranged in order of establishment under their respective categories.

News and magazines

Radio and television

Academic journals

References

  1. Points of Pride
  2. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_21/b4085000602083.htm
  3. http://www.princetonreview.com/Schoollist.aspx?type=r&id=712
  4. http://www.princetonreview.com/Schoollist.aspx?type=r&id=675
  5. http://www.slashfood.com/2006/08/26/princetonreview-bowdoin-campus-food/
  6. http://collegeprowler.com/tufts-university/campus-dining/
  7. http://njartscouncil.com/top-schools-in-the-northeast-see-the-rankings/67/
  8. http://enews.tufts.edu/stories/233/2006/08/28/TuftsHailedAsGayFriendlyCampus
  9. Daniel de Vise (18 October 2009). "Colleges Speaking Up to Protect Shy 'Sexiles'". The Washington Post.
  10. The cannon arrives on campus, 1956
  11. Michael Blanding (Winter 2006). "Express Yourself". Tufts Magazine. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
  12. "Concise Encyclopedia of Tufts History: Spring Fling, 1980". Tufts Digital Library.
  13. Athletics Department - Tufts University
  14. Mike Preston, Tufts tops Salisbury, 9-6, for Division III title; Sea Gulls fall behind early, can't catch up to Jumbos, The Baltimore Sun, May 30, 2010.
  15. http://www.ncaa.com/history/fieldhockey/d3. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  16. http://www.ncaa.com/history/softball/d3. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  17. http://www.ncaa.com/history/lacrosse-men/d3. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  18. http://www.ncaa.com/history/soccer-men/d3. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  19. http://www.ncaa.com/history/fieldhockey/d3. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  20. http://www.ncaa.com/history/lacrosse-men/d3. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  21. "Gridiron gridlock". The Boston Globe. September 23, 2004.
  22. Smith, R.A. "Sports and Freedom: The Rise of Big-Time College Athletics", New York: Oxford University Press, 1988
  23. Boston Red Sox spring training history: from 1901 to 2003. | Sports & Recreation > Sports, Games & Outdoor Recreation from AllBusiness.com
  24. - NCSA Collegiate Power Rankings
  25. Tufts Media Advocacy Board Homepage
  26. The Tufts Daily Homepage
  27. Tufts Observer Homepage
  28. Tufts Zamboni Homepage
  29. Discourse Homepage
  30. Tufts Outbreath Homepage
  31. Tufts Public Journal Homepage
  32. Tufts Traveler Homepage
  33. Tufts WMFO Homepage
  34. Tufts Jumbocast Homepage
  35. Tufts Hemispheres Homepage
  36. TuftScope Journal Homepage
  37. Tufts Historical Review Homepage