Hurricane Katrina had a prominent spot on the nation's radar - as well as the University community's collective consciousness - as the schoolyear began. Tufts opened its doors to displaced Tulane University students, 40 of whom attended Tufts for the fall semester before returning to Tulane for the spring.
But even then, Katrina's devastating effects were still being felt. In January, approximately 100 Tufts students traveled to the Mississippi Gulf Coast on a Volunteer Vacation, spending a week helping to repair, rebuild and provide relief to the recovering community. A smaller group of students traveled to the area over spring break in March, providing another dose of still-needed help.
On-campus relief efforts were abundant: Through its Jumbo-Laya charity event, the Tisch Library raised over $1,000 for the Southern University of New Orleans' (SUNO) mostly-decimated library, and Theta Chi and the Leonard Carmichael Society sold Mardi Gras beads to benefit Katrina victims.
Tragedy hit close to home on Nov. 22, when Tufts senior Boryana "Bory" Damyanova died after being struck by two cars at the intersection of Broadway and Wallace Street. Damyanova, an international student from Bulgaria, came to Tufts through the sponsorship of trustee and alumnus Bruce Male (LA '63). Her memory was honored at an emotional memorial service in January.
Tufts also lost its "first lady" from 1976-1992, former Tufts University President Jean Mayer's wife Elizabeth Van Huysen Mayer, in whose honor the Mayer Campus Center is named. The community also mourned the losses of Nadia Medina, founder of the Academic Resource Center (ARC) and the Writing, Thinking, and Speaking Center; Associate Computer Science Professor Jim Schmolze; and Physics Professor David Weaver.
Tufts alumni and eBay founders Pam (LA '89) and Pierre Omidyar (LA '88) donated $100 million to the University in November. The donation, which kicked off the Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund, was the largest single donation in Tufts' history. Another cash infusion came Tufts' way in May, when Jonathan Tisch (LA '76) donated $40 million to the University College of Citizenship and Public Service, which has now been renamed the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service.
Throughout the year, construction on Sophia Gordon Hall and the University's new music building - which had begun the previous school year - proceeded as scheduled. In February, 100 lucky rising seniors won spots in Sophia Gordon's 25 four-person suites; this year's unlucky class of graduating seniors grumbled bitterly every time they walked past the appealingly designed brick building. ("We missed the boat by one stinking year!")
There was more grumbling following the rash of crimes that plagued the Tufts community this semester, including at least 13 car break-ins, a mugging in the Curtis Hall parking lot and a Brown and Brew break-in in which one safe was stolen and another was broken into.
In November, with a year's distance from his failed bid for the presidency, John Kerry paid a visit to Tufts' Crane Room, addressing area Democrats on the importance of grassroots politics. That same month, political humorist Al Franken spoke at Tufts, hawking his new book and disappointing liberals and conservatives alike with his surprising listlessness. Several hours after Franken's underwhelming appearance, "Hotel Rwanda" proprietor Paul Rusesabagina took to Cohen's stage, delivering an impassioned and highly personal indictment of the international community's inaction on Rwandan genocide. Rusesabagina was voted the year's best guest lecturer in the Daily's 2006 Best of Tufts survey.
Another engaging individual, Samiyah Diaz (LA '99), was brought to campus by the Tufts Republicans. Diaz, who is running for a Mass. State Senate seat, is black, Hispanic, a single mother, the daughter of immigrants, a Muslim and a Republican. (They do exist!) On May 8, officials announced that Diaz's opponent, Democratic incumbent Diane Wilkerson, did not attain the number of signatures required to appear on the ballot. The Left displayed more effective organizational skills in April, when the College Democrats of Massachusetts gathered at Tufts for their annual convention. That same weekend, five Tufts Republicans made their way to the Massachusetts Alliance of College Republicans' annual convention at Boston's Marriott Long Wharf Hotel.
There may have been conventions galore, but seniors' final year at Tufts was one without a Fares Lecture. In a late-April e-mail to the Daily, Bacow wrote that "earlier in the year, we tried to get a sitting head of state to commit. It took a while to get a definitive response from their scheduling office. A visit to Tufts was conditional upon a state visit to the [United States], and that did not work out for a variety of reasons that were not explained to us. We had another speaker lined up who canceled on us. Given the prominence of the Fares speakers, it is not always easy to get firm commitments from them."
But seniors can leave Tufts knowing that Bacow plans on maintaining a firm commitment to the University. After the Globe wrote in March that Bacow was on the short list of prospects to replace Harvard's outgoing president Lawrence Summers, Bacow shot down that report, telling the Daily, "I took this job expecting it to be my last. I still do."
Hold him to that, kids.
