The Board of Trustees last month awarded outgoing Secretary of the Corporation Linda Dixon (J '63, F '99) the prestigious Hosea Ballou Medal in honor of her service to the university.
University President Lawrence Bacow presented the award to Dixon at a trustees weekend reception on Nov. 6. The Board of Trustees awards the Ballou Medal to "recognize members of the Tufts community who have rendered exceptional service for the institution," according to a press release from the board.
Dixon, who has served for 17 years as secretary of the corporation, described the event as emotional. "I was blown away," she said. "I know the significance of it."
Including Dixon, The Board of Trustees has conferred the Ballou Medal to only 14 people in the university's history. Past recipients include Herbert C. Hoover, the son of U.S. President Herbert Hoover, and former University President Jean Mayer.
Board of Trustees Vice Chair William O'Reilly praised Dixon's dedication to the university. "We know that even before she came to work for the university, she was immensely committed to it," he said.
Dixon's ties to the university go back decades. Shortly after graduating from Tufts in 1963, she volunteered as a chapter adviser to the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority. She has also been an Alumni Council member since 1968, chairing various alumni committees, including the Homecoming and Alumni Weekend Committees.
The trustees wanted to recognize Dixon's legacy as she leaves her long−held position.
"On her retirement, the board really wanted to say, this is not just someone who worked with us for a long time," O'Reilly said. "We wanted to give a warm goodbye to someone who has left a tradition behind her."
Paul Tringale (LA '82, F '01) will succeed Dixon on Dec. 15, Tringale said.
Dixon was hired as secretary of the corporation in 1992, while she was working on the search committee to appoint the next university president. At the time, she was a self−employed market research consultant in the real estate development field. "I was ready for a career change," she said.
As secretary of the corporation, Dixon facilitated the planning for trustee committee meetings and trustees weekends, during which the board makes administrative decisions.
O'Reilly said that Dixon was perfectly suited for the position. "You want those meetings to be productive and effective, and there's a tremendous amount of information which you want to try to communicate to the members of the board," he said. "[It's] a job that can be done very well if you are highly organized and thoughtful about the management of information, which I think is what she was."
One of Dixon's major accomplishments is the digitization of the board's documents.
"We put everything on the Web. It's highly secure," she said. "We get very good feedback from the trustees [saying] that it's effective and user−friendly. We try to help our trustees be as trained and knowledgeable as possible."
O'Reilly praised Dixon for her character, which he said has benefited the board. "She's a very positive person — unflappable also — when problems arise," he said. "She set a fantastic tone for the trustees, just the right mix of positive personal warmth, but also seriousness of purpose, given the obligations of the trustees."
The trustees wanted to choose a person with a Tufts background, according to Dixon. "The decision was made that it would be an internal candidate," she said.
Tringale, Dixon's successor, formerly served as director of conferences and summer programs, later becoming the director of commencement.
Dixon felt that Tringale fit the position well. "Our backgrounds are very similar," she said. "He's marvelously capable, his people skills are fantastic. He has an easy, pleasant, likeable temperament."
Tringale said the board members have impressed him. "They work very well together, they seem to have a good social network, they look like they get along well and enjoy being together and they were certainly working very hard at the meetings I sat in on," he said.
Dixon agreed with Tringale's assessment and said that she was proud of the board's devotion to serving the Tufts community and to continually raising its standards.
"Tufts deserves the best leaders it can get," Dixon said. "This board has really concentrated on effective governance — really tried to be a sophisticated board and to govern this university in a really sophisticated way."
