Students looking for a reason to travel into Beantown this weekend need look no further than the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate's new Cultural Ticket Web page.
Senator Sam Wallis, a sophomore who chairs the Senate's Services Committee, this fall upgraded an informational Web page on TuftsLife.com that provides students with details about the city's cultural attractions.
The fledging "Cultural Ticket to Boston," launched last year, has yet to catch on seriously among undergraduates, but Wallis said he hopes the site will become more popular in the coming years and help many more students explore Tufts' host communities.
Sponsored by the Senate and initially spurred by a 2003 report on the undergraduate experience, the page features links to music, sports and arts offerings in and around Boston.
"In an environment like ours, when so many people choose to study abroad as a cultural option, people haven't spent a lot of time learning about our own culture," said Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman, who praised the Web page.
Tufts' proximity to Boston is a primary factor that attracts high-school students to apply to the university, Wallis said. Upon arriving here, though, freshmen do not actually venture into the city as often as they might have thought they would, in part because they are not aware of the opportunities the city offers, he said.
"A lot of students like Tufts because of Boston, but don't make use of the available cultural options," said Wallis, who noted that his primary goal as chair of the Services Committee is to improve social life at Tufts.
TCU President Duncan Pickard said the idea behind the Cultural Ticket is "fabulous."
"One of the reasons students choose Tufts is the cultural options surrounding it," Pickard said.
The concept for the Senate's page emerged from the 2003 final report of the Task Force on the Undergraduate Experience, a group University President Lawrence Bacow created in 2001 to assess undergraduate life and offer advice on how to improve it. In its report, the task force recommended the creation of the Cultural Ticket to Boston, among other suggestions.
The initial concept envisioned the Student Services office distributing discounted tickets to plays, concerts and sporting events to students. This plan was eventually deemed unrealistic; instead, the idea for a Web site with links to available discounted tickets arose as a potential alternative.
Reitman noted Tufts' transition from a regional university to an institution that draws students from all over the world, and said Boston now hosts many people who may not be aware of its "wealth of offering[s] in music, culture, food and sports."
Most students have yet to utilize the Cultural Ticket, although some have noticed a link to it on the right side of the TuftsLife homepage.
Sophomore Coby Grand said that although he had never heard of the Web page, he feels it could prove useful to students.
"I think more people would use it for finding concerts around the Boston area that normally they wouldn't ... hear of," Grand said. "I think kids would use it for music and sporting events."
Freshman Paige Colton had a similar opinion. "I saw it on TuftsLife and it looked interesting," Colton said. "I'll definitely use it in the future."
Wallis said he is unsure about how many people have actually used the Cultural Ticket, as the Web site does not currently have a hit tracker.
"We are always wishing we'd have a great response, [but] it's tough to get the word out about off-campus things when there's so much [happening] on campus," Reitman added.
Some freshmen expressed disappointment with Boston's minimal role in student life.
Allister Chang said he "expected a little more." Before coming to Tufts, the freshman said he had heard about a significant intermingling of students at different Boston-area schools, but upon attending, he has not seen this.
Reitman said the Cultural Ticket exists as a great resource for those students who do not go abroad, calling it "a way to take advantage of junior year when friends are less likely to be around," he said.
The Cultural Ticket was unavailable for a period of time as TuftsLife was revamped this summer, but the page reappeared with the new TuftsLife with even more resources.
Wallis researched the featured attractions and Web sites, and the results are exhaustive in some categories; the page lists and has links to all of Boston's major museums, for example. Certain categories have a less pronounced selection. The list of a few small music venues is meant to serve "as a jumping-off point," Wallis said.
The sophomore senator said he expects the next chair of the Services Committee to keep updating the site, analyzing its usage and brainstorming ideas about how to expand its reach.
Ben Gittleson contributed reporting to this article.
