Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. For much of the 20th century, Jackson College for Women was the coordinate college of Tufts. Tufts remained a small liberal arts college until the 1970s, when it became a larger research university offering doctorates in several disciplines.
Tufts enrolls over 13,000 students. It offers over 90 undergraduate and 160 graduate programs across ten schools in the greater Boston area and from a campus in France. It has the country's oldest graduate school of international relations, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. The largest school is the School of Arts and Sciences, which includes both the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, which is affiliated with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The School of Engineering offers an entrepreneurial focus through its Gordon Institute. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and is a member of the Association of American Universities.
Tufts has a campus in Downtown Boston that houses the medical, dental, and nutrition schools and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, affiliated with several medical centers in the area. Joint undergraduate degree programs are offered with the New England Conservatory, the College of Europe, and Sciences Po Paris.
History
19th century
In the 1840s, the Universalist Church wanted to open a college in New England, and Charles Tufts donated 20 acres to the church in 1852 to help them achieve this goal. Charles Tufts had inherited the land, a barren hill which was one of the highest points in the Boston area, called Walnut Hill, and when asked by a family member what he intended to do with the land, he said "I will put a light on it." His 20-acre donation is still at the heart of Tufts' now-150-acre campus, straddling Somerville and Medford. It was also in 1852 that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts chartered Tufts College, noting the college should promote "virtue and piety and learning in such of the languages and liberal and useful arts as shall be recommended." During his tenure, Hosea Ballou spent a year travelling and studying in the United Kingdom. The methods of instruction which he initiated were based on the tutorials that were conducted in the University of Oxford and the University of Edinburgh. Now more than 170 years old, Tufts is the third-oldest college in the Boston area.Having been one of the biggest influences in the establishment of the college, Hosea Ballou II became the first president in 1853, and College Hall, the first building on campus, was completed the following year. That building now bears Ballou's name. The campus opened in August 1854. President Ballou died in 1861 and was succeeded by Alonzo Ames Miner. Though not a college graduate, his presidency was marked by several advances. These include the establishment of preparatory schools for Tufts which include Goddard Seminary, Westbrook Seminary, and Dean Academy. During the Civil War the college actively supported the Union cause. The mansion of Major George L. Stearns which stood on part of the campus was a station on the Underground Railroad. In addition to having the largest classes spring up, 63 graduates served in the Union army. The first course of a three-year program leading to a degree in civil engineering was established in 1865, the same year MIT was founded. By 1869, the Crane Theological School was organized.
Miner's successor Elmer Capen was the first president to be a Tufts alumnus. During his time, one of the earliest innovators was Amos Dolbear. In 1875, as chair of the physics department, he installed a working telephone which connected his lab in Ballou Hall to his home on Professors Row. Two years later Alexander Graham Bell would receive the patent. Dolbear's work in Tufts was later continued by Marconi and Tesla. Other famous scholars include William Leslie Hooper who in addition to serving as acting president, designed the first slotted armature for dynamos. His student at the college, Frederick Stark Pearson, would eventually become one of America's pioneers of the electrical power industry. He became responsible for the development of the electric power and electric streetcar systems which many cities in South America and Europe used. Another notable figure is Stephen M. Babcock who developed the first practical test to determine the amount of butterfat in milk. Since its development in the college, the Babcock Test has hardly been modified. Expansion of the chemistry and biology departments were largely led by scholars Arthur Michael, who was one of the first organic chemists in the U.S., and John Sterling Kingsley, who was one of the first scholars of comparative anatomy.
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 to house his collection of animal specimens and the stuffed hide of Jumbo the elephant, who would become the university's mascot. The building stood until April 14, 1975, when a fire gutted Barnum Hall, destroying the entire collection.
On July 15, 1892, the Tufts Board of Trustees voted "that the College be opened to women in the undergraduate departments on the same terms and conditions as men." Metcalf Hall opened in 1893 and served as the dormitory for women. At the same meeting, the trustees voted to create a graduate school faculty and to offer the PhD degree in biology and chemistry. In 1893 the Medical School opened and in 1899 the Boston Dental College was integrated into the university. In 1890, the Department of Electrical Engineering was created, and in 1892–1893 the course of three-year program in civil engineering was extended to four years. With the advent of the four-year program the degrees granted were bachelor of civil or electrical engineering. Tufts College added the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Chemical Engineering in 1894 and 1898, respectively. In 1898, the trustees voted to formally establish an undergraduate College of Engineering.
20th century
African American students, many from Medford, began attending Tufts in the 1870s. The first known Black graduate was Forrester Blanchard Washington, a native of Salem, who graduated in 1909. In 1919, Jessie Katherine Gideon Garnett was the first Black woman to graduate from the School of Dental Medicine; she was the sole woman and Black student in her class.Image:Tufts1910.jpg|thumb|Walnut Hill as it appeared prior to the construction of Tisch Library and steps, circa 1910. In the center is Eaton Hall. The road to the right no longer exists.The Jackson College for Women was established in 1910 as a coordinate college on the Tufts campus, in part because there was a feeling that men would not want to attend a Tufts College where women were a large-scale presence. The Jackson College and the Tufts College of Liberal Arts shared the same courses and faculty, but for much of its existence, Jackson College had its own student activities and student government, separate from that of Tufts, and its own dean. It was a prestigious women's college at its peak; in comparison to the Tufts undergraduate schools that men attended, Jackson College was considered harder to get admitted to and to have an academically stronger group of matriculants. Students of this era were very proud of being associated with Jackson and felt identity with, and loyalty to, the Jackson name. Over time, things changed, and female students felt more of a belonging to Tufts University itself. In 1980, Jackson College was integrated with the College of Liberal Arts but was still recognized in the formal name of the undergraduate arts and sciences division, the College of Liberal Arts and Jackson College. Undergraduate women in arts and sciences continued to receive their diplomas from Jackson College until 2002.
Tufts expanded in 1933 with the opening of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the first graduate school of international affairs in the United States. The Fletcher School began as a joint effort between Tufts and Harvard University, funded by an endowment from longtime Tufts benefactor and alumnus Austin Barclay Fletcher. Tufts assumed full administration of the Fletcher School in 1935, and strong linkages between the two schools remain.
During World War II, Tufts College was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Due to travel restrictions imposed by World War II, the Boston Red Sox conducted spring training for the 1943 Major League season at Tufts College. In 1955, continued expansion was reflected in the change of the school's name to Tufts University, though the corporate name remains as 'Trustees of Tufts College'.
In 1945, Tufts formed an affiliation with the Boston School of Occupational Therapy, which had been in existence for several decades. The Boston School was officially merged into Tufts in 1960. During the 1980s, its campus moved from Boston to Somerville to Medford, and it became a school within the College of Arts and Sciences. Later it became a department within the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Still sometimes referred to as the Tufts University - Boston School of Occupational Therapy, it remains one of the top-ranked occupational therapy programs in the nation.
The university experienced some growth during the presidency of Jean Mayer. 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 dire financial situation by increasing the size of the endowment by a factor of 15.
The College of Engineering added graduate study to its curriculum beginning in 1961, with master's degrees available in four departments. It added PhD programs in mechanical engineering in 1963, electrical engineering in 1964, engineering design in 1981, and civil engineering in 1985. In 1984, CEO and chairman of Analogic Corporation and NeuroLogica Corporation Bernard Marshall Gordon founded the Tufts Gordon Institute as the first educational institution created to foster entrepreneurship in the engineering fields. In 1991 the New England Association of Schools and Colleges accredited the institute to confer the degree of Master of Science in Engineering Management and in 1992 the Gordon Institute became part of the College of Engineering. In 1999, the College of Engineering became the School of Engineering, when oversight of graduate engineering programs was transferred from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. As part of the same reorganization the Faculty of Arts and Science became the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering.