In 1852, Tufts College was founded by Universalists who had for years worked to open a non-sectarian institution of higher learning. Charles Tufts donated the land for the campus on Walnut Hill, the highest point in Medford, saying that he wanted to set a "light on the hill." The name was changed to "Tufts University" in 1954, although the corporate name remains "the Trustees of Tufts College." After over a century as a small New England liberal arts college, the French-American nutritionist Jean Mayer became president of Tufts in the late 1970s and, through a series of rapid acquisitions, transformed the school into an international research university.
Tufts is organized into 10 schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France. The university emphasizes public service in all of its disciplines and is well-known for internationalism and its study abroad programs.
History
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." 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. Having been one of the biggest influences in the establishment of the College, Hosea Ballou II became the first president in 1853.
Tufts received a gift of $136 million, the largest in the university's history, on April 9, 2008 upon the dissolution of a charitable trust set up by 1911 alumnus Frank C. Doble. As an unrestricted gift, the donation was invested entirely in the university's endowment. The investment will help finance the construction of a lab complex integrating biology and engineering, already in the planning stages, which will bear Doble's name.
Previously, the university had received the three largest donations in its history during 2005 and 2006. On 4 November 2005, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam donated $100 million to Tufts to establish the Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund. On 12 May 2006, Jonathan Tisch gave $40 million to endow the University College of Citizenship and Public Service, which now bears his name. The veterinary school was named in honor of William S. Cummings after a $50 million donation to the school in 2005. On September 4, 2007, it was announced that Steve Tisch had donated $10 million to support a $35 million athletics and fitness facilities expansion planned to begin in late 2008; in addition, the Jaharis Family Foundation donated $15 million to renovate the Sackler Center for Health Communications and build a new campus center for the Boston campus and medical school.
Campus
Tufts' main campus is located on Walnut Hill in Medford, about 5 miles (8 km) from Boston. While the majority of the campus is in Medford, the Somerville line runs through the campus, placing some parts of the lower campus in Somerville, and leading to the common terms "Uphill" and "Downhill" for the two sections. The offices of the president, the provost, many of the vice presidents, and the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences are located in Ballou Hall, the oldest building on the hill. There are administrative offices in the surrounding neighborhoods and nearby Davis Square. Many points on the hill have noted views of the Boston skyline, particularly the patio on the Tisch Library roof.
Library
The Tufts University Library System contains over 3 million volumes. The main library, Tisch Library, holds about 2.5 million volumes, with other holdings dispersed at subject libraries which include the Hirsh Health Sciences Library on the Medical campus in Boston, the Edwin Ginn Library at the Fletcher School, the Lilly Music Library in the Granoff Music Center, and Webster Library at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine on the Grafton campus.
Academic Reputation
Tufts' undergraduate program is ranked #28 overall on U.S. News & World Report's 2009 rankings of national universities tied with the Wake Forest University, tied for #102 in Shanghai Jiao Tong University's 2007 Academic Ranking of World Universities, and #157 in the Times Higher Education 2008 World University Rankings. Tufts University has also been consistently ranked as #1 for best undergraduate International Relations programs in the country, including the 1996 Gourman Report published by the Princeton Review.
In the Princeton Review's 2006 Best 361 Colleges, Tufts was named #7 in a list of the 20 schools in the country where students are happiest, and #17 in a list of the 20 schools in the country with the best food.
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy was ranked 4th in the Foreign Policy magazine's ranking of top Masters degree programs in International Relations. Only Georgetown University, Harvard University and Johns Hopkins University are ahead of Tufts in this ranking.
Schools
Tufts University comprises eight schools including:
- The School of Arts and Sciences (1898 or 1903)
- The School of Engineering (1898).
- The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (1933), America's oldest graduate school for international relations and foreign affairs.
- The School of Dental Medicine (1899)
- The School of Medicine (1893), whose primary affiliated hospitals are the Tufts Medical Center and the Baystate Medical Center.
- The Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences (1981).
- The Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy (1981), the only graduate school of nutrition in North America, with the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center.
- The Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine (1978), the only veterinary school in New England.
- The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service (2000).
Tufts University was ranked 157th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking
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