With each passing year on the Hill, professors join and leave the swelling ranks of the Tufts faculty. Though as many as two dozen qualified professors are slated to be hired in September, there will also be some conspicuous absences in the 1999-2000 Tufts faculty. Among the most noticeable of these vacancies will be the one left by Tufts philosophy professor Hugo Bedau.
Bedau, who has taught at Tufts for the past 33 years - ever since he was invited to become chairman of the philosophy department in September of 1966 - is retiring as a full-time faculty member this spring. Bedau is known throughout the educational community for his lifelong opposition to the death penalty. Though he will be spending the next few years in London, Bedau plans to return to Tufts eventually to teach his favorite classes in a part-time arrangement.
"I'm just giving myself a sabbatical," Bedau said.
After teaching at Princeton and Dartmouth in the early part of his career, Bedau eagerly accepted Tufts' offer to become chair of its philosophy department in 1966, a position which he held for ten years.
"When I was in my thirties, I really wanted to be the chairman of a philosophy department - that seemed to me to be a sensible aspiration," Bedau said. "I had the rare opportunity to spend the first ten years [at Tufts] building this department, and it's one of the great adventures of an academic career. I'm very lucky to have had that opportunity."
With years of experience at Tufts behind him, Bedau reflected on some of the many improvements that have been made over the years, and gave some valuable insight into some of the problems that currently face the university.
"The faculty works harder than they ever have. There are a lot of workaholics on the faculty because the competition is so severe for academic posts that you can't really sit on your laurels, or not sit comfortably for very long," Bedau said.
He went on to say that the biggest problem Tufts has encountered over the last decade has been a gradual change in the composition of its student body.
"We need a balance of socio-economic class, as well as sex, race and all the other usual variables. I think we need that - and I've noticed a change. We're not as diverse, socio-economically, as we were," Bedau said. He pointed out that Tufts is much less diverse than many of its benchmark schools. Citing increased financial aid as the best way to combat these problems, Bedau noted that financial aid fundraising is an extremely difficult task.
"People want a building with their name on it," Bedau said, noting that financial aid donations often entail little recognition for their contributors.
Despite these setbacks, Bedau said that he has always enjoyed life at Tufts and in the Boston area.
"Ever since I came here as a graduate student, I fell in love with the Boston area. I have never been sorry to be at Tufts. Tufts has been good to me and I'd like to think that I've reciprocated," he said.
When asked about Tufts' questionable position on the US News and World Report rankings, Bedau expressed very little confidence in the accuracy of the rankings.
"I attach virtually no weight to them, and I don't think that any faculty member attaches any weight to them," he said. "They measure the wrong sorts of things. I'm not sure that I would approve of what it would take to boost us in those rankings... I wish they could figure out a better way to rate."
Bedau, in what could be seen as his parting words, gave his advice on how to best appreciate the time one spends as a undergraduate.
"These four years are, I think, a great treasure; and I often think that when I was in college - and things haven't changed all that much - most of us don't appreciate the meaning of the tremendous value of what it is that we are experiencing. It's a precious thing, and it needs to be supported, it needs to be absorbed fully. The last thing in the world that you want to do is to waste your time at this college for four years.
"There's so much to be got, the time is so precious," he continued. "When you're burdened with mortgage payments, you'll look back on these four years as a kind of heavenly moment when you were free of all those responsibilities - and you will curse yourself for failing to take advantage of them - if in fact you don't. Make the very greatest use of your four years here to advance your own maturity and education and your whole view of the world."
