Talk about building another dorm abounds, as do predictions about the possibility of a new music complex. Meanwhile, the construction of the psychology building continues, providing further evidence of Tufts' swift physical expansion. But another less talked about form of University growth - academic - will soon require tough administrative and student attention. Tufts should be prepared to limit the expansion of its course offerings or the academic trends of the day will soon overshadow the tried and true disciplines that make this University great.
In the face of student lobbying for new majors and language options, the University must realize that it is more important to offer quality traditional programs rather than cater to each passing fad. The focus of academic expansion must be the addition of resources to departments like economics - those with proven appeal, real- world application, and a basis in the liberal arts tradition - rather than to untested fashionable programs that require new departments and faculty and whose interest among students is not yet assured.
But if Tufts chooses to address academic expansion by allowing the amount of programs it offers to proliferate, the University will almost assuredly find itself spread too thin and with little money to enhance its core offerings.
The basis of a liberal arts education ought to be attention to the sciences, both physical and natural, history, philosophy, English, political science, and economics. Moreover, Tufts has always rightfully held that students should be worldly, and for this reason some attention must be paid to foreign language and cultural studies. These basic programs should be the main recipients of academic funds - everything else can be covered through independent studies or, as Provost Gittleman notes, by combining the current resources of departments, as was done with Biopsychology and IR, allowing new topics to be addressed without additional faculty and staff.
While Tufts does not have every program that one might expect to find at the largest of universities, the programs it does offer demonstrate across-the-board quality. This consistency - not incredible facilities nor nationally recognized sports teams - is Tufts' best feature and the single most important factor in keeping the University competitive with wealthier and larger schools.
Furthermore, academic reputation is one of the most important factors that administrators must consider when allocating scarce resources. Tufts will never have the money or space to offer some of the more practical, but less academic, programs such as a business major, a comprehensive communications and advertising curriculum, a journalism program, or an accounting major, even though these fields attract so many of today's career-minded students. These programs aren't realistic in our constraints, so it will be left to the reputation of the economics department, for example, to convince the top finance students in the country to come here over schools of lesser quality that may offer more focused courses. For this reason, Tufts should concentrate its attention on traditional disciplines; for if they are preeminent in the country, drawing qualified students will never be a problem.
But Tufts, like many other colleges, has veered somewhat from its liberal arts objectives with the introduction of too many fashionable programs - some have value, but too many become a drain. The attempted introduction of new language programs - Hindi/Urdu, Armenian, Czech, and Korean - have showed the difficulties encountered when introducing and maintaining new courses: little money, trouble finding quality faculty, and inconsistent demand. The current Hindi/Urdu program, while popular, has experienced obstacles in finding and retaining a professor at the relatively low salary that the Ex College offers. The Korean and Armenian programs took off briefly, but could not be sustained in later years for a lack of interest.
Outside of language programs, the women's studies major was controversial at its inception, with some students questioning whether this subject constitutes a legitimate discipline. The international letters and visual studies major - which allows students to choose from a virtual cornucopia of courses in film, literature, and other visual arts - is interesting, but not a vital liberal arts pursuit. Cultural studies, like Middle Eastern or Judaic studies, and the interdisciplinary programs such as the peace and justice major, are also on the upswing as seen with the impending inauguration of the Middle Eastern studies program this week. Some of these programs may have been as successful if offered as an IR cluster, perhaps requiring less new faculty or staff.
The problem with these programs is not their utility; the difficulty is that with the introduction of each new program comes an obligation to find quality professors - a rather expensive obligation. True, other schools, Cornell among them, offer upwards of 30 languages to service 20,000 students. But these universities are far larger than Tufts and can afford to squander resources on programs aimed at the few. Tufts should keep the programs it currently has, and when more money appears in the face of fewer building costs, the University should still avoid the temptation to accommodate certain intellectually thirsty students. For at that point, although the economics and Spanish departments may well be fully staffed, there will assuredly be other core areas of instruction in need of financial assistance.
If small programs continue to luxuriate, however, they will continually siphon resources from the traditional disciplines. With departments like Spanish and Economics struggling to offer enough courses to interested students for a lack of professors, Tufts should learn to say "no" quickly, but politely, to calls for new majors. Even at a student-centered university, it is the only responsible answer.
