An update on academic strategy, a campus center for Tufts' Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, and endowment transparency were on the agenda at Tufts' Board of Trustees' tri-annual meeting, which took place Thursday through Saturday of last weekend.
During Friday afternoon's committee meetings, the Administration and Finance Committee approved two new building projects: a $2.9 million renovation to the kitchen in the Hodgdon dormitory, and a $5.5 million renovation to laboratory infrastructure in the Arnold Building in downtown Boston.
The committee also gave the go-ahead for $600,000 for architectural design and planning for a campus center at the Cummings School, financed by trustee Agnes Varis.
Currently, veterinary students only have a trailer containing a small cafeteria as a central gathering place, Linda Dixon, Secretary of the Trustees, said.
The committee also reviewed the university budget. Robert Kim, a senior who serves as the trustee representative, presented in support of further dormitory renovations.
Also presenting were freshman Gabe Frumkin, sophomore Nicole Zeller and sophomore Liz Gross from the Tufts Coalition for Endowment Transparency and Democracy, who asked the committee to consider making public more information about Tufts' endowment.
According to Frumkin, the proposal first asked that Tufts make public the investment ownership of its endowment. It also proposed an advisory committee that would discuss Tufts' investments and vote proxies of the companies Tufts invests in. Similar structures are already in place at other schools, such as Dartmouth and the University of Wisconsin.
The group was then asked what kind of powers such a committee would have, and on what values investment decisions would be based. The students responded that the committee would assess the investments according to Tufts' institutional values and would seek more to open dialogue than to make demands.
"Our request was to have a skeleton committee ready for the proxy season in March," Frumkin said.
"It definitely raised awareness, it definitely created some serious discussion," Dixon said of the presentation. "They said they couldn't say yes or meet demands, but [they thought] that it was a reasonable presentation, and they're going to try to continue to work with them. It most assuredly left the door open."
The Committee for Advancement heard an update from Vice President for University Advancement Brian Lee on the university's Capital Campaign. Director of Advancement Communications and Donor Relations Betsey Jay and Vice President for University Relations Mary Jeka presented new campaign materials.
From campaign launch parties in key cities - including New York, Washington, D.C. and London - the fundraising effort had made significant progress since September, Dixon said.
Senior and Tufts Community Union Senator Jessica Feinberg delivered a presentation supporting joint alumni-student service projects.
The Academic Affairs committee convened to hear a panel discussion on cognition and diversity. Given by Psychology Professor Nalini Ambady and Associate Professor Keith Maddox, it focused on "how the mind makes first impressions," Dixon said.
Senior Kayt Norris also proposed a plan to create an Institute of Political Citizenship at the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service.
Work of the day complete, the trustees gathered Friday evening in the newly inaugurated Granoff Music Center to celebrate its opening with trumpet fanfares originally composed for the occasion, some of which included elements of Tufts fight songs.
Saturday morning's board meeting featured Provost Jamshed Bharucha's update about Tufts' academic strategy, "a grand vision for improving academic quality and continuing to move Tufts on an upward trajectory," Dixon said.
Bharucha presented what he called the "Virtuous Cycle of Academic Reputation," outlining how investment in junior faculty and infrastructure improves academic reputation and draws further prestigious hires to Tufts.
"We have actually injected some resources into the schools from the central administration by ... drawing on some university resources and doing some reallocation," Bharucha told the Daily of his presentation.
"Much of the run [on hires] we've seen has been made possible because the senior leadership has not just wanted to see each school as sinking or swimming on its own [and has worked on] helping lift them up, and investing central university resources into the schools."
This change in policy helped recruit deans like Linda Abriola of the School of Engineering and Robert Sternberg in the School of Arts and Sciences, as well as faculty including Associate Professor Adil Najam at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Assistant Professor Phillip Mu?±oz in political science, and Professor Bruce Hitchner in classics.
At the trustee luncheon Friday afternoon, Tufts' video for its capital campaign, entitled "Tufts Is," was also shown, in which a wide variety of community members, from Meredith Vieira (J '76) to Bill Richardson (A '70, F '71), explained the university's significance to them and its continuing evolution.
In the spirit of the video, the attendees were asked to complete the sentence "Tufts Is," from their own experience, and reflect on how students could help with the campaign.
Thursday, the Board also welcomed its four new trustees elected in November, Andrew Safran, Ellen Kullman, Jeffrey Kindler and Andrew Liveris, to their first trustee meeting.
