For many Tufts trustees, Homecoming weekend was the first chance to meet the University's new president since the body hired him last spring.
Approximately 30 of the 36 trustees - who gather on campus three times each year - met with president Larry Bacow on Saturday afternoon. "The purpose of the meeting was to hear about new ideas," trustee Bruce Male said.
At the meeting, Bacow reviewed his priorities with the trustees, focusing on three areas: the University's need to generate more support for faculty salaries, increase student financial aid at both the undergraduate and graduate level, and integrate its seven schools.
"We also talked about the need to engage younger alumni in the activities of the University," Bacow wrote in an e-mail this week.
Bacow presented trustees with his restructuring plans for the administration, which included the creation of a University Council on Graduate Education headed by chemistry Professor David Walt, and the appointment of Susan Ernst as dean of Arts and Sciences. As part of the restructuring, Sol Gittleman is stepping down as provost after 21 years in the position and has asked President Bacow to begin a nationwide search for a replacement.
According to Nathan Gantcher, the board's chairman, the trustees also discussed the proposed new dormitory, which he said will house 150 students. The site has not been chosen, and plans might be more concrete by the time the trustees reconvene in February. At that meeting, trustees will also get the chance to speak with Tufts' students representatives.
This weekend, however, the focus was on getting acquainted with Bacow, and the board seemed initially pleased with its choice of president.
"He is very happy to be here," Male said. "He seems very excited." As John DiBiaggio's successor, Bacow has "big shoes to fill," Male said, but "he's a very impressive guy."
On Friday, about 60 faculty members from all of Tufts' schools attended a luncheon with the trustees. "The general sense of the luncheon was that Tufts has come an enormous distance over the past 25 years," said Provost Sol Gittleman, the University's chief academic officer.
Since the mid-1970s, the University's endowment has grown from $28 million to nearly $600 million, Gittleman said, "which is still not enough." Tufts, Gittleman said, "is in need of the resources to take us to the next level."
The University hopes to increase the alumni giving rate from 31 percent to 40 percent over the next five years.
"The trustees promised we would do it. They also said that President Bacow is the person who will guide us," Gittleman said.
