Yesterday evening marked the 15th annual Opening Up the Classroom conference, an event organized by Tufts' Experimental College (Ex College).
A broad cross-section of the Tufts community gathered in the new faculty dining facility in Carmichael Hall to discuss this year's theme: "Tufts Life: Expectations vs. Experience." Sixty-three people were in attendance.
The crowd was broken up into groups of eight, and a general free-flow of ideas was encouraged by Assistant Director of the Ex College Howard Woolf.
"The idea is to encourage faculty and students to sit together in a way that hardly happens anymore," Woolf said.
Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Lee Minardi, who sits on the Board of the Ex College, said the main purpose of the event was "to get different people together and gain new perspectives" on life at Tufts.
Three central questions posed by Woolf to the audience were meant to guide the individual discussions around the tables - name one thing at Tufts that should be changed, one thing that is currently working well, and what should one question on the alumni questionnaire 10 years from now be?
In answering the three central questions of the night, similar answers arose from the individual tables.
Half of the tables said that, in terms of changes at Tufts, a greater level of faculty-student interaction was required.
Other tables said the need for more on-campus space for faculty-student interaction is a need the University should consider in the future.
With regard to what Tufts was successfully achieving, five tables described accessibility to and efficiency of on-campus student clubs and organizations.
Other responses included a "high level of faculty accessibility" and "a culture of respect among students and faculty."
The tables' answers to the future alumni question varied, including, "What skills do you wish Tufts had provided you?" and "How much money do you give to the University, and why is it not more?"
Table conversations, however, extended beyond these three questions and broached a wide variety of concerns expressed by students, administrators and faculty.
Freshman Jesse Cooper, for example, said that he was particularly concerned with the condition of some buildings on campus.
"As a Mechanical Engineering major, I have a different vantage point than most students [regarding this issue]," Cooper said. He said his current dorm, Wren Hall, is an example of buildings on campus that require attention from facilities.
Director of Drug and Alcohol Education Services Margot Abels addressed the issue of student confusion regarding alcohol consumption on campus.
"I hear students say that there are a lot of mixed messages coming from the administration regarding drinking," she said.
According to Abels, this is unacceptable. "There is a serious situation regarding drinking that leads to dangerous and even potentially fatal situations for students," Abels said.
Although rules regarding drinking are officially listed in the Pachyderm, Tufts' student handbook, Abels said that a more effective advertising campaign might eliminate confusion amongst the student body.
Cooper added that rules regarding Tufts Emergency Medical Service (TEMS) and possible administrative discipline were never mentioned during his freshman orientation.
With regard to drinking on campus, sophomore Talia Quandelacy said, "The fact that people are afraid of calling TEMS for fear of getting in trouble is a bad sign."
Sophomore Doug Kingman, President of the Tufts Republicans, addressed what he considers to be the "large problem" of "ideological indoctrination" and "institutional bias" that allegedly pervades liberal arts education.
He said there was a need for the Tufts Academic Freedom Project (TAFP), which would increase the monitoring of the University curriculum more often. Kingman said that the curriculum currently undergoes a review every 10 years.
"We need safeguards to protect us from the ideological indoctrination," Kingman said. He recommended an annual review of the curriculum to ensure that it "stays on track."
But Associate Dean Chris Nwabeke said that such a measure might not be necessary. "There are constant changes in the curriculum as it is," he said. "If a professor broaches an argument only from one side, the student has the ability to raise questions. That's how you learn."
The event concluded with a tabulation of a poll taken by participants at the program's outset. The question posed to the group was "If I could go back to when I made the decision to attend or to work at Tufts, my decision would be the same: Definitely So, Probably So, Maybe, Probably Not and Definitely Not."
One-hundred percent of faculty chose "Definitely So" as their answer, as did 76 percent of administrators. Zero percent of students said they would "Definitely Not" have chosen Tufts as their school of choice.
