Newly elected trustees Agnes Varis and alumnus Seth Merrin (LA '82) will be serving at their first meeting this weekend after being elected last November.
Varis, a graduate of Brooklyn College, has not only achieved considerable professional success but has also been an ardent advocate for women in the sciences.
Now president and founder of two successful pharmaceutical companies, Agvar Chemicals, Inc. and Aegis Chemicals, Inc., Varis was the first woman to break into all-male pharmaceutical organizations including the Drug Chemical Allied Trade Association and the Sales Association of the Chemical Industry.
"I've always dedicated myself to moving anything along to help women," Varis said. [University President] Larry Bacow is absolutely on the right course on bringing more women into different [administrative] positions at the different schools. That's very impressive."
Varis' engagement with the University stems from Tufts' School of Veterinary Medicine, of which she has been an overseer and substantial benefactor for some years. A lecture hall, a joint veterinary and public health program, and a department chair are all endowed in Varis' name.
Varis is not only interested in what her business and the School of Veterinary Medicine can bring to the University, but also the "rejuvenating" effect the students can give her - a self-described "flaming liberal" committed to social causes during her young adulthood.
"I felt like as you go into the routine of working, slowly your enthusiasm for changing the world diminishes and you feel like you can't participate the same way," she said. Thus, it is easy to get "a little cynical."
Interacting with students at Tufts, "I see life as I saw it when I was in college when I was 17, and I'm 75 now," Varis said. "The basic thing of doing something for society in your country, giving back something, is there."
Merrin is now president and CEO of Liquidnet Holdings, a block trading company ranked the fifth fastest growing company on Inc. Magazine's list of private companies in America.
This technology-driven venture allows businesses to improve large block trades of equity anonymously and directly with significant price improvement.
Merrin has also spearheaded other advances in business and financial software, including the industry's first Order Management System (OMS), as well as founding two other companies specializing in financial technology.
As for Tufts, "I'm devoted," Merrin said. "Larry Bacow? I would take a bullet for him," he said. "If he sent me to Iraq I would go."
"I loved my experience at Tufts," Merrin said. "It's with me every single day, I can't say how much that has helped me both socially and from a business perspective."
Merrin, who majored in Political Science, said close community was his primary memory of Tufts.
"My favorite things were the professors and the access that people had," he said. Tufts connections now make up a crucial part of his present world, Merrin said.
Merrin is the second member of his family to be a trustee at Tufts - his father, Edward Merrin, (LA '50) also served as a trustee from 1980 - 1991.
