Tucked away in the corner of the second floor in Ballou Hall, where the slick marble floors, meticulously maintained carpets and extra-high ceilings are more reminiscent of a grand hotel than an administration building, hangs a painting titled "Portrait of an Unknown Man." It is just outside the office of Provost and Senior Vice President Jamshed Bharucha, who has established himself as a key player in the university's increasing prestige in his nine years on the Hill.
But as the 2010-11 school year comes to a finish and over 1,300 undergraduate students and six other senior administrators, including President Lawrence Bacow, prepare to leave the Hill, Bharucha is also planning his departure. He will become the 12th president of The Cooper Union in New York City, effective July 1. Bharucha's work as provost entailed so many responsibilities that are hidden behind the scenes that it can be difficult to conceptualize how he spent his time. What exactly is a provost, and what will Tufts lose when Bharucha heads to the big city?
His relaxed and friendly demeanor — the man looks more like a diplomat than a violinist-cum-cognitive psychologist — masks the large amount of work he carried out on a regular basis. Officially, the provost oversees nearly every aspect of academic operations at Tufts. His duties include recruiting faculty and administrators, major fundraising efforts, overseeing diversity and supervising the tenure and promotion of faculty.
Bharucha's days tended to be so densely scheduled that he humorously referred to the job as chaos.
"A typical day is back-to-back meetings. ... I can show you a visual of the calendar," he said with a grin. "Not even any time to follow up in between and do emails and phone calls."
While Bharucha admits to having an easier time now, he maintained a grueling schedule when he first arrived in February 2002. Between traveling, grant-writing and attending dinners and receptions, he found that he still worked well beyond full-time.
"When I first started, I was jumping in and learning and having to make decisions on the fly as well," he said. "Back then, I think I was putting in fifteen-hour days for my first two or three years."
The difficulty, Bharucha said, lies in how overwhelmingly complex Tufts is, with 10 different schools spread over four campuses. From the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Bharucha had to navigate a maze of interdisciplinary interests.
"The sheer volume and diversity of issues that hit you constantly — you have to learn about a wide range of fields. Taking care of the concerns of the arts departments are very different from the medical school," he said.
Bharucha has been reviewing his work at Tufts repeatedly in the past few months in preparation for his departure.
"As I look back, I probably appointed eleven deans," he said.
During his tenure, admitted students' academic profiles have improved — the class of 2015 boasted the strongest academic profile in Tufts history. He designed academic programs such as the Provost's Fellows program and the Graduate Competitiveness Initiative, both of which are designed to improve Tufts' recruitment of doctoral students, and took a major role in the construction of the Granoff Music Center, after which enrollment of prospective music majors doubled, he said.
Enlisting faculty, more than any of his duties, addressed what he considered the most important part of his job: meeting the needs of students.
"Faculty define the academic and intellectual experience that students have," Bharucha said. "And if you can get the very best, then they are able to provide the students with challenge and opportunity that our students, who are the best, deserve."
Bharucha's strategy for assembling this faculty dream team drew upon Tufts' upward momentum in academics, the competitive packages it offers for research support and the institution's location in one of the most academically driven cities in the world.
"You play the Boston card. Boston is the ultimate destination for a professor," he said.
Bharucha attributes his leadership style to his background in music, having picked up classical violin as a child in Mumbai. He believes his experience in ensembles taught him how and when to assert himself and when to "play background."
He still studies and performs music, including a recent performance of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony with the Tufts Symphony Orchestra during a farewell show in his honor.
As he got older, he changed his course, earning his bachelor's degree in biopsychology at Vassar College and then a master's in philosophy at Yale University. When applying to doctorate programs, a chance encounter introduced Bharucha to the then-avant-garde world of psychology and music. Spotting a flyer while touring at Harvard University, he returned for a lecture by Carol Krumhansl, for whom he later did research.
"It was a big risk because all of my advisers said, ‘Don't do it,' because integrating music with psychology or with neuroscience was still not seen as a mainstream thing," he said. Only a few years later, he received his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Harvard and launched a career researching the link between music and psychology.
Bharucha's background in psychology also fueled his rise from professor to dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Dartmouth College, becoming the first Indian-American dean of an Ivy League school.
"Understanding psychology is extremely beneficial to being a more effective and skillful leader," he said. "Leadership is about people, and people are complicated."
Yet despite the challenges that come from leading an academic institution and its people — 11,000 staff members and students at Tufts — he considered the chance to head to the big city one that he couldn't pass up.
"This opportunity that I've been given is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lead an institution that has an extraordinary history as one of the most selective colleges in the country," he said.
Although leaving Tufts was the right choice for him, he insists that Tufts has made a lasting impression on him.
"I leave Tufts feeling very, very fulfilled. I've been part of something great," he said. "Tufts people are authentic people."
But he has not left yet. Keeping up with his intense travel schedule, this summer he plans to conduct his final inspection of the academic rigor of Tufts in Talloires, an inspection that may just have to include paragliding off the cliffs there. After nine years of tirelessly working to help Tufts become what it is today, a summer in France is a welcome respite.
Preparing for his final Commencement ceremony, Bharucha hopes to leave students with a few words of wisdom.
"The most important thing in life is to help other people," he said. "That way of thinking comes very naturally at Tufts, and all I can say is, let it stay with you."
