Arriving at Tufts means stepping into a thriving international community in constant evolution. To bring you up to speed, here is a summary of the headlines from the academic year 2010-2011.
September
After a year of deliberations on how to combat alcohol abuse on campus, the university revised its alcohol policy to include increased administrative discretion and a forgiveness option.
The Daily Beast ranked Tufts as the most dangerous campus in the country, surpassing 457 other institutions. University administrators disputed the claim, citing "flawed methodology," as Tufts includes local police reports in its crime tallies, and most of the crimes occurred near the Boston campus.
October
Passion Pit headlined the first annual "Cage Rage" concert as the annual fall rock and hip-hop concerts were merged into a single event.
November
The Presidential Search Committee concluded an extensive search process by appointing then-University of Oxford's Professor Anthony Monaco as Tufts' 13th university president. Former University President Lawrence Bacow announced his departure from Tufts after a decade of service during the spring semester of 2010.
Tufts' Quidditch team, the Tufflepuffs, placed second in the Quidditch World Cup held in New York City, coming in only behind national powerhouse Middlebury College, the creators of muggle Quidditch.
December
After a pair of safety alerts was sent to the Tufts community concerning a possible armed individual on campus, the African-American individual in question turned out to be holding a ratchet wrench rather than a handgun. The incident — later dubbed "Wrenchgate" — sparked a heated debate on campus regarding what some students perceived to be racial undertones involved in the incident.
January
University Information Technology selected the name "trunk" in a contest to name the new university-wide learning management system (LMS). Trunk, based on the open-source LMS platform Sakai, will replace Blackboard this semester.
February
Following a Tufts Community Union Senate resolution supporting the creation of an Africana studies department and major, Dean of Arts and Sciences Joanne Berger-Sweeney announced the creation of a task force to consider how to approach integrating Africana studies into the Tufts curricula.
March
Citing safety concerns, Former University President Lawrence Bacow announced that the university would no longer sanction the annual Naked Quad Run. A new event named WinterFest will debut this year and will offer students a clothed way to celebrate the end of classes, though some students are vowing to keep the tradition alive this year, no matter the consequences.
April
Construction crews arrived on campus to begin work on the new Steve Tisch Sports and Fitness Center, a three-story, 42,000-square-foot complex that will be built between the Gantcher Center and Cousens Gym and is on schedule to be completed by fall 2012. Construction also began on a new 7,200-square-foot building located in front of South Hall, which will serve as the temporary headquarters for the university's two-year project to replace the Student Information System technology.
Jumboleaks, a group of current and former students, released a confidential document outlining what it alleged was a list of the university's direct investments in 2010 after obtaining the document from an undisclosed source. The group cited dissatisfaction with the university's lack of financial transparency and investment in corporations the group considered socially irresponsible as its primary motives.
During the final April Open House event of the year for prospective students, a group of students assembled on the Academic Quad to speak with attendees about what they perceived was a misrepresented racial climate at Tufts.
