Education

Back-to-school guide: Tufts University

August 30, 2015

3 minutes to read

We asked current students and recent graduates to give us the inside scoop on their colleges before the school year begins. Here, the The Tufts Daily Editors tell us the best and worst things about Tufts, and also give advice to incoming freshmen.

Click here for a full-sized version of the cheat sheet

Tell us about three things you think are “right’’ with your school:

1. The faculty is incredible. Just about everyone seems to have had a number of professors who have influenced them considerably.

2. The food in the dining halls is consistently very good, and the staff makes sure they’re always open when they need to be – which has sometimes required that they stay overnight in a blizzard!

3. There are a lot of really cool opportunities to pursue interdisciplinary courses of study, either through institutionalized programs or custom-designed majors. These programs seem to be steadily increasing, and the university has been making a point to hire “Bridge Professors,’’ whose areas of expertise lie at the intersections of multiple fields.

Tell us about three things that you think are “wrong’’ with your school:

1. As part of a plan to increase efficiencies and save $900,000 annually, Tufts’ administration decided in 2014 to alter its contract with DTZ, a company that employs and manages Tufts’ janitorial staff. This change, which has yet to be fully implemented, would require that several janitors at Tufts lose their jobs. Months of student, janitor and faculty activism — culminating in a weeklong hunger strike in May and continuing to the present — challenged the administration’s approach to budgeting, citing the vulnerable position of the workers who would be impacted and the large salaries of top administrators.

[Editor’s note: You can read more here, including Tufts’ response.]

2. Some students and faculty at Tufts have been demanding that the administration divest from the fossil-fuel industry for several years. They argue that major fossil fuel companies contribute considerably to climate change, and are consequently responsible for environmentally-based harm inflicted upon people around the world, especially the most marginalized. The administration has countered that there are too few viable investment funds to make up for the loss that divestment would cause the university to incur. Instead, the administration set aside money for a Sustainability Fund to grow socially and environmentally sound investments alongside existing investments in fossil fuel companies. In April, this disagreement led to a three-day occupation of University President Anthony Monaco’s office by student activists.

3. In April 2014, the federal Office of Civil Rights (OCR) found Tufts to be in violation of Title IX (of the Education Amendments of 1972) because of deficiencies in the way it handled sexual misconduct investigations. As a conflict unfolded between Tufts and OCR that briefly jeopardized Tufts’ federal funding, huge student demonstrations demanded that the university commit to bringing their policies up to the standards set by Title IX. While campus activists have worked with administrators to guide policy changes during the fifteen months since the protests — and have noted marked improvements — the reform is a work in progress.

What advice, specific to your school and campus, would you lend an incoming freshman?

One of the most exciting things about life in college is the fact that it is constantly changing. Every few months, you have a whole new routine, a whole new set of intellectual challenges, and a lot of new social opportunities. This healthy state of flux means that new people are coming into your life all the time, even at a relatively small school like Tufts. This is an important thing to keep in mind, especially if you’re overwhelmed by the rapid-fire introductions and phone-number exchanges that fill the first few weeks.

When you first arrive, it can feel imperative to find your crew as quickly as possible, but the stakes aren’t as high as they seem. Some people will meet their best friends right away, and that’s great. But many others will take some more time to find the right people for them, and their circles will grow throughout their time at college. So don’t worry if it’s late September and it feels like everyone’s got it figured out but you — few people really do, and that’s OK.