The Somerville city budget is expected to be reduced by nearly $5 million this year due to a slowing economy and federal funding cuts.
The Tufts Community Union Senate met on Monday to provide project updates, review the resolution process ahead of numerous resolutions being presented to the Senate and to hear funding appeals from student groups, before ending the meeting early because a quorum of 24 senators was no longer present.
This semester, the Tufts Community Union Senate Judiciary recognized 22 new student clubs and organizations, granting them access to funding, room reservations and tabling at the club fair.
Medford and Somerville were hit with more than 20 inches of snow in late January, marking the largest snowfall in the area since 2022.
Professors of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts ratified their first collective bargaining agreement with the university on Tuesday, ending nearly two years of tense negotiations.
The Tufts Community Grants program is currently fundraising for its 2026 grants. The fundraising effort, which ends on Feb. 28, is raising money to award grants to nonprofits in Medford and Somerville that are partnered with Tufts volunteers.
Tufts is piloting a new pre-college program this summer called College Prep 101 for Neurodivergent Students, designed to help neurodivergent high school students prepare for their transition to college. The program, launched by Tufts University College, will run June 22–26 and is open to students in grades 10 through 12 who are able to commute to Tufts’ Medford/Somerville campus.
The Tufts Community Union Senate hosted a Tuition Transparency Town Hall on Tuesday to break down how the university allocates its budget amid rising tuition costs. The event featured several senior university leaders, including Provost and Senior Vice President Caroline Genco, Vice President for Finance and Treasurer ad interim Thomas Malone, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Bárbara Brizuela and Dean of Engineering Kyongbum Lee. Approximately 60 students attended.
A group of students in the Tufts Graduate School of Engineering completed their first semester as the inaugural class of the Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence. The new program comes as student interest in AI continues to grow, sparking the creation of undergraduate student organizations.
The Tufts Community Union Senate welcomed newly elected senators and discussed an effort to include voting information in syllabi, among other issues, in its Sunday meeting.
Haviv Rettig Gur, a veteran journalist for The Free Press, The Times of Israel and host of the “Ask Haviv Anything” podcast, headlined “The Configuration of the Middle East After the Gaza War” last Wednesday, a conversation hosted by the Tufts Center for Expanding Viewpoints in Higher Education.
A campuswide survey sent by the Tufts Community Union Senate at the end of the fall 2025 semester found that Tufts students generally do not feel supported by the Senate and do not know what it does.
A Boston immigration judge terminated Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk’s removal proceedings, according to a filing made by Öztürk’s lawyers on Monday. Immigration Judge Roopal Patel found that the Department of Homeland Security had failed to bring forward sufficient grounds for Öztürk’s deportation.
Tufts University’s research expenses have grown significantly over the last five years despite cuts in federal funding posing serious challenges to research across academia. According to Tufts’ 2025 Annual Financial Report, research expenses increased by $43.3 million, or 24.5%, over the past five years. This growth was accompanied by an $11.7 million, or 4.2%, increase in sponsorship revenue — including grants, contracts and gifts — from the prior fiscal year.
The Medford City Council’s Planning and Permitting Committee is reviewing a proposed update to the city’s Vacant Building Ordinance, aiming to reduce long-term commercial vacancies. Sponsors argue that such vacancies harm neighborhood vibrancy and stifle local business activity.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Sauter filed an appeal on Friday on behalf of the federal government of U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper’s preliminary injunction reinstating Rümeysa Öztürk’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System record.
Tufts is piloting a new initiative this spring break designed to bridge the gap between undergraduate education and professional careers. The Jumbo Undergraduate Mission for Personal Insight and Navigation program, spearheaded by Elise LaMotte, associate provost for student success, will offer approximately 100 first-year students hands-on experience across four different academic tracks, connecting them directly with the university’s graduate and professional schools.
The City of Somerville saw a recent spike in overdoses, prompting the Somerville Police Department to publish an overdose warning on Jan.19. Five overdoses occurred on the weekend prior to the warning, three of which were fatal.
The U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation on Thursday into whether Tufts University’s National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement has contributed to the illegal sharing of college student data to influence elections. The Student Privacy Policy Office, which is a part of the Department of Education, says it opened the investigation in response to several allegations that the NSLVE has violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act by sharing data with third parties.
Steve Tisch, a Tufts alumnus and donor whose name appears on several campus buildings, was revealed last Friday to have communicated frequently with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein about women, dinner invitations, football games and Epstein’s private island.
