University President Anthony Monaco, who arrived at Tufts last August, has already become an active figure on the Hill. Yesterday, the Daily discussed some of the changes Monaco has implemented in his first year in office. Today, we focus on Monaco's long-term plans for the university.
Monaco describes his vision for Tufts as a relatively simple one.
"I want to see Tufts have a bigger impact on society through our teaching, research, active citizenship and building up a diverse community that's inclusive," he said.
The process of getting there, though, will take millions of dollars, years of work, and input from hundreds of students, staff and faculty.
Councils, working groups and planning sessions
Since taking office, Monaco has convened a number of committees to tackle issues like improving sustainability, diversity and research opportunities on campus.
Monaco emphasized the importance of the Thematic Area Working Groups in growing the impact Tufts has on the world. One of the central goals of the working groups is to identify areas for collaboration between departments and across schools. According to Monaco, Tufts boasts uncommonly deep research capabilities compared to its peer schools, noting that Tufts has the only veterinary school in New England and the only graduate nutrition program in the country. But he said the university is not necessarily using those resources as effectively as it could be.
"I think we can have a bigger impact in what we do," Monaco said. "[The] nutrition [school], the vet school, really world-class biomedical engineering program, good biology department, chemistry department which is really oriented to biological applications like DNA - those to me are all the right ingredients to think about ways to promote interdisciplinary research."
By combining the resources of multiple departments, Monaco hopes to make Tufts more competitive at securing major research grants.
"I think it will help us on the international scene and the quality of our research and the impact it has," he said.
Monaco said the working groups will also look for opportunities to form graduate programs that combine several different departments.
Next year, the administration will launch an 18-month, university-wide strategic planning process led by Monaco and David Harris, who will assume the position of university provost on July 1. Throughout the planning process, the administration will take into account the recommendations of the working groups, according to Monaco.
The process of making major, lasting improvements to the university will take at least five years, and Monaco plans to remain university president for at least that long, he said.
"One is going to do a strategic planning process and launch a [fundraising] campaign, and all that's going to take two years of lead up-time," Monaco said. "You can't get anything really significant done unless you spend a minimum of five years."
But Monaco also said it's important that Tufts doesn't go too long without a change in leadership.
"I think as [former University President] Larry [Bacow] did, I would not expect to stay for longer than ten years, because I don't think it's good for the individual or the institution for someone to spend longer than that," Monaco said. "Most of the things I did at Oxford, like the directorship of [the neurogenetics] research center, were for nine years, and then I looked for a new challenge."
Financial hurdles
Tufts last summer concluded the Beyond Boundaries campaign, a nine-year fundraising initiative headed by Bacow that raised $1.2 billion for the university.
Before launching a campaign under Monaco's leadership, the administration will first complete its strategic planning process, which will inform the university's fundraising objectives, Monaco said.
"With all campaigns, one kind of takes a pause in between, but you never stop fundraising," he said. "We must continue to raise money for financial aid, for faculty support, for some of our capital investments, so it never stops."
By the end of his tenure at Tufts, Monaco said he'd like to see the university make admissions decisions on a need-blind basis. Currently, admissions is need-sensitive, meaning that the Office of Admissions must sometimes take the amount of an applicant's financial need into account when deciding whether or not to an extend an acceptance.
"I think we need to do better on financial aid," Monaco said. "Needs-blind is a difficult thing to achieve because it requires a very large endowment, which we don't have at present."
Monaco acknowledged that Tufts' current need-sensitive admissions policy may put the university at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting applicants, especially since several of its peer schools - including Harvard University, Brandeis University and Boston College - have need-blind policies.
Tufts briefly switched to a need-blind policy in 2007 and 2008, but the Office of Admissions had to discontinue the practice in 2009 after the funds allocated to financial aid dried up.
According to Monaco, the reason the need-blind policy did not last was that it was based on a "spend-down program" rather than built into the university's endowment. In other words, the funds for the program were coming from a large, finite gift to the university, and once the money from the gift was exhausted, it was impossible to continue the need-blind policy. The economic downturn made it especially difficult to continue with the policy.
"[With a spend-down gift], you've got to keep getting gifts every year to have enough money to spend down, so if you go through a recession, if you have a difficult year in annual fundraising ... then you have difficulty maintaining needs-blind," Monaco said. "I think if one really wants to go needs-blind, it would be better to have the goal of trying to raise the endowment."
Monaco estimated that to implement a true need-blind program, Tufts would need to have about $400 million in the endowment dedicated to it.
"It's a goal, and it's something I will work very hard and passionately to try to achieve, but one has to do it in a staged approach," he said.
Transforming the Hill
If Tufts is going to broaden the impact of its research, Monaco said, then the university's research facilities will need upgrades as well.
Many of the laboratories on the three campuses are in need of renovations, and Monaco said he would also like to consider adding a new lab entirely. The university recently acquired a facility at 200 Boston Avenue, which has provided some of the faculty with "brand new facilities to work with," according to Monaco. The last building with lab space to be constructed on the Medford/Somerville campus was the Psychology Building, which was completed in 2001.
"We [need to] look at the entire master plan at all three campuses and then come up with a capital plan that looks well into the future about how you might finance these initiatives going forward," Monaco said.
Monaco also said he'd eventually like to see upgrades to the campus' fitness facilities, though he said the Steve Tisch Sports and Fitness Center, which will open in September, is a good start. The Tisch Center will feature a new fitness room that is double the size of the current facility, new locker rooms, multipurpose teaching and activity rooms and up-to-date exercise equipment.
"The Steve Tisch Sports and Fitness Center is really going to transform sports and our ability to recruit top athletes, but a lot of that facility is for students and staff," Monaco said.
Though there are no concrete plans to add additional fitness facilities, Monaco said he'd like to make more improvements.
"We'd like to replace the pool. Can we find a location and the funding for an ice hockey rink? These are things that I'd definitely support planning," he said.
Monaco also identified on-campus dormitories as an area for potential upgrades.
Tufts' dorms are often compared unfavorably with other Boston-area schools, such as Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Northeastern University.
If the university wants to make dramatic improvements to dorms, Monaco said, the administration will have to consider adding an additional residence hall.
Since Tufts doesn't have enough dorm space to leave an entire residence hall vacant during the school year, all renovations must take place over the summer. This only leaves enough time to update bathrooms and common areas. Renovating the living areas would require closing a residence hall for several months.
If Tufts had an additional residence hall - a "dorm swing-space," as Monaco called it - then an entire residence hall could shut down and still leave enough rooms available to house the student body. This would allow the university to renovate almost every dorm on campus over a ten-year period, according to Monaco.
"That, to me, is the most sensible approach to this," he said.
The newest dormitory on the Medford/Somerville is Sophia Gordon Hall, which was completed in 2006 and houses only seniors. The most recent addition available to all students is South Hall, which opened in 1991. Most of the other dorms were built in the 1950s, 60s and '70s.
While Monaco could not say for sure whether or not a new dorm would be built during his time at Tufts, he said it is very important to make major renovations to existing residence halls.
"I'm not trying to make concierge services and climbing walls in the dorms," he said. "I just think if you don't renovate these things and you just keep painting over, then you're not looking after your assets. And the students are going to suffer because their facilities aren't going to be as nice as they could be."
