"Great institutions are always looking to become better. That's how they stay great," University President Lawrence Bacow told the Daily.
With this emphasis on constant improvement, Tufts launched "Beyond Boundaries," its new capital campaign, in a ceremony Friday evening at Boston's Wang Center with trustees, staff, students and supporters in attendance.
The fundraising goal: an ambitious $1.2 billion, more than half of which ($615 million) has already been raised in the "quiet stage" of the campaign.
The university has made very detailed plans for the funds it hopes to raise, detailed in a press release from the Tufts Office of Public Relations.
But Vice President of University Advancement Brian Lee told the Daily that the crux of the campaign goes beyond the financial details.
"[On] one level, it's about money, but more importantly [it's] about charting a plan for the future of the University," Lee said. "I hope this campaign will help us more profoundly influence the world."
Accordingly, one clear priority is to transform Tufts into a need-blind institution at the undergraduate level, a cause to which officials hope to direct $200 million.
Approximately 60 percent of funds raised would go to the university's endowment, as of June 30 valued at $1.2 billion, according to an official press release from Tufts Office of Public Relations.
Twenty-one percent would be reserved for long-term use, with 19 percent put towards current projects.
Of the $1.2 billion goal, the School of Arts and Sciences would receive $425 million, the School of Engineering $150 million, the School of Medicine and Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences $225 million, and the School of Dental Medicine $40 million.
Officials hope to target $100 million each toward the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and $50 million to both the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and cross-university initiatives. The Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service would receive $60 million.
Many of the schools have common goals that have been grouped into five different priorities.
The first priority, "supporting the student experience" aims to raise $380 million.
While funding need-blind admissions for undergraduates falls under this category, all of the schools plan on using part of the money they receive individually to bolster financial aid for students.
According to Jeffrey Glassroth, Vice Dean of the Medical School, one of the central goals of the Beyond Boundaries campaign is "to try to soften tuition by developing scholarships. [We want to] maintain a diverse student body."
Another goal of the campaign is "fostering an outstanding faculty," the press release read. Officials hope to allot $333 million to this cause.
"[We have to] support our faculty with the best teaching [and] scholarly learning environment possible," Bacow said.
"[We're] only as good as the people who work here," Dean of Undergraduate Education James Glaser said.
The School of Arts and Sciences is looking to get "more faculty on board" and increase the ways in which the school can support them, Glaser said.
This includes improving facilities and classrooms and supporting more research opportunities for faculty and providing competitive salaries.
Provost Jamshed Bharucha said that the best way to use the money would be to retain talented professors by providing them with a secure salary.
"The most important thing we can do for outstanding faculty is to raise endowed professorships," he said, which are funds of $1-2 million that "support a professor's salary in perpetuity."
According to Glassroth, Medical School funds would go towards maintaining faculty and the cost of recruiting more after turnover.
A hoped-for $277 million will work towards the third priority of the campaign, which the press release describes as "building and enhancing the physical infrastructure."
Vice President of University Advancement Brian Lee said the "most important agenda" for new facilities on the Medford campus is an integrated research laboratory that would combine bioengineering and biology.
"We need additional laboratory space on this campus," Bacow said. "The last [laboratory] we built was Pearson. Science has changed. Facilities needed have changed."
Other plans for new facilities include a campus center for the Veterinary School, Bacow said.
The Veterinary school is situated on 600 acres and comprised of separate buildings, including a hospital for large animals and a wildlife clinic, but "has always lacked a campus center," he said. "Imagine this [Medford-Somerville] campus without a campus center."
The Medical School plans on using a part of their allotment to develop a simulation center which would be used to train students on "everything from cardiac resuscitation to how to put an I.V. in," Glassroth said.
The center will use techniques ranging from patient actors to computer driven robot systems in order to teach students.
A goal of "supporting academic innovation" would receive $127 million, according to the press release, by supporting both old and new programs.
"We hope to raise another $4 million or more for the Summer Scholars Program to support it," Bharucha said. In this program, students work with faculty on research at all seven of Tufts' schools and its four teaching hospitals.
"One of the strengths we have at Tufts is the numerous schools and departments. We have more of a culture of collaboration - the [medical] school works with the dental school, and it works with the bio department in collaboration with engineering, for example," he said. "That kind of collaboration can produce outstanding results."
Finally, annual support for current initiatives will receive $83 million of the funds raised. This includes financial aid and building renovations.
James Bologna contributed reporting to this article.
