University President Sunil Kumar announced Wednesday afternoon that the university will adopt a position of institutional pluralism after nearly a year of considering a position of institutional neutrality. Tufts’ Institutional Neutrality Working Group made its final recommendation to the Board of Trustees, which affirmed the statement in August.
This summer, Tufts piloted a Mortgage Assistance Program in an effort to aid faculty in taking out a second mortgage on their home at a low interest rate. The program follows the recommendation of the Faculty Housing Task Force, formed in the spring of 2024 to improve access to pre-existing faculty housing benefits.
Over the summer, members of the Tufts Community Union Senate spent time planning for the upcoming semester in various capacities. Members of the Senate’s executive board, composed of the TCU president, vice president, treasurer, parliamentarian, historian and diversity officer, have also brainstormed ways to adjust and improve the Senate for the upcoming semester.
Tufts has updated its hazing policy for the 2025–26 school year, standardizing reporting procedures across all campuses, establishing mandatory training for all students and mandating the university to publish official statistics in the Annual Safety Report, created by the Department of Public Safety.
Digital Planet, a research initiative of The Fletcher School’s Institute for Business in the Global Context, completed a study in July that details the effects of rapid digitalization caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The study aimed to examine the impact of digitalization on economic evolution and the environment through a metric coined the “Burn to Earn” Index.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III transferred a motion to restore Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System record from Vermont to the District of Massachusetts.
LinkedIn has released its first-ever Top Colleges list, with Tufts ranked No. 16 out of 50 schools recognized for strong career outcomes. The new ranking uses LinkedIn’s data to evaluate schools based on students’ job and internship placements, alumni achievements and network strength.
In an American Association of University Professors lawsuit against Secretary of State Marco Rubio for the administration’s deportation policy, Peter Hatch, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency official, testified that ICE used Canary Mission for leads in its investigation of noncitizen pro-Palestine student activists.
Professors of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts were notified throughout March and April of several changes to the school’s administrative structure. According to an open letter from the union, these changes include revising the structure of deans at the school and consolidating SMFA’s four studio departments into two. The two new department chairs would not be eligible for union membership.
Tufts full-time union lecturers in the School of Arts and Sciences ratified their third contract with the university on Wednesday. The FTLs, represented by Service Employees International Union Local 509, began negotiations for workload and salary adjustments in April 2024.
On April 18, the Daily sat down with University President Sunil Kumar to reflect on his second year as Tufts’ president and discuss the shifting state of higher education.
The Tufts Community Union Senate confirmed the 2025–26 school year budget for student organizations to be roughly $3 million at its budget meeting on April 20. The budget set is slightly higher than the budget of $2.9 million for the 2024–25 school year. The budget increase comes from an internal reallocation of resources and the continued surplus funding from the COVID-19 pandemic that paused most on-campus activities, according to rising senior Dhruv Sampat, the 2024–25 TCU treasurer and incoming TCU president.
Graduating senior Sam Berman began his journey in the Daily as business director for the fall 2022 semester and continued leading the Daily’s business department for the rest of his sophomore year. He then went on to be an alumni liaison in fall 2023 alongside Ty Blitstein (LA’24) and a social committee chair in spring 2024 with Megan Amero (LA’24) and graduating senior Siya Bhanshali.
For rising senior Dhruv Sampat, it’s been a moment long in the making. After winning the 2025 TCU Presidential election a few weeks ago, he will serve as the president of the Tufts Community Union Senate for the 2025–26 academic year. Involved in student government since high school, Sampat will culminate years of experience serving his fellow students, including two years managing the $2.7 million Student Activities Fund as TCU treasurer, with this position.
Outgoing Tufts Community Union Senate President Joel Omolade sat down with the Daily to reflect on his presidency and the Senate’s accomplishments. Originally from the Bronx, N.Y., Omolade is a senior majoring in political science and community health and a member of the Children of Cultures of Africa dance team. He is also the former president of Tufts’ resident assistants union.
Tufts plans to offer more on-campus housing to transfer students for the 2025–26 school year. Rising junior Defne Olgun, a 2024–25 TCU trustee representative; Christina Alch, director of residential life and learning; and Perry Doherty, associate director of residential operations, have been involved in the effort to expand housing for transfer students.
Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on the evening of March 25 on her way to an Iftar dinner. The Tufts community and local residents have demanded that she be released from ICE detention and return to her studies at Tufts. The following article provides a timeline of actions relating to Öztürk’s case and related activism on and off campus as of May 7.
Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk returned to Massachusetts on Saturday and spoke publicly to a crowd of reporters at Boston Logan International Airport following her release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. Öztürk was joined in speaking by members of her legal team, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.
U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III ordered Friday that Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk be released from the custody of Immigration Customs and Enforcement. She has been held at a detention facility in Basile, La., since her detainment on March 25. Sessions ordered that Öztürk may return to her home in Somerville and is allowed to travel freely within Massachusetts and Vermont.
Dhruv Sampat will serve as the next president of the student body and the Tufts Community Union Senate for the 2025–26 academic year, according to junior Luca O’Neil, the chair of the TCU Elections Commission. Total election turnout was 9.9% of the student body, which is down from 30.36% turnout in last year’s presidential election. Sampat is the first candidate since 2017 to run uncontested for TCU president.
