These pages were written by Tufts students. Flipping through them should feel like taking a stroll through campus. You’ll meet professors and students; they’ll share with you what excites them. You’ll drop into a class on an unfamiliar topic and leave inspired, dig into some fascinating research, or hang out in a residence hall with potential classmates. Along the way, you might decide that Tufts feels like the right place for you. If that happens, this magazine is also for you— ip to the back where we’ve broken down the basics on applying: deadlines, nancial aid, and our advice. This is Tufts; explore it.
PHOTO BY ANNA MILLER/TUFTS
CURIOSITY. It drives us to ask questions, to explore, to stay up way too late reading books on philosophy or watching videos of Rube Goldberg machines wondering just how some one gured out something so complex and so beautiful. It is the need to know more, and to then apply that knowledge to doing more.
Tufts tends to attract intellectually curious students for whom learning is part of the thrill. In fact, our selection process seeks out those very students—one of our short-answer appli cation questions in recent years has asked, “What excites your intellectual curiosity?” We seek to understand what makes your heart beat a little faster, what lights up those neu rons in your brain, and what you would stay up way too late learning about.
Coming to Tufts provides endless opportu nities for you to ex your curiosity muscle. Our diverse community of scholars from around the world will expose you to ways of thinking and being that might be entirely new to you.
Most of what you’re about to read was written by these Tufts students. Listen for their voices as they introduce you to the Tufts community, page by page.
Each of our dozens of majors and minors is an opportunity to immerse yourself in a sub ject area about which you may have only scratched the surface…so far. As an R1 research university, you will be surrounded by, and potentially contribute to, a generation of new knowledge as we all seek to answer the questions that intrigue us. And every one of our 300+ student organizations is a chance to learn something new with new friends in a new environment. I hope that intrigues you!
In this issue of Jumbo, you will learn how curiosity drives Tufts. You will learn how some thing as simple as a toothbrush ignited the mind of Professor James Intriligator in his human factors engineering research and how Tufts creates a dynamic space where our Dean of Research and Professor of Psychology Ayanna Thomas can let her research ourish. You will read about how multiple elds of study are integral to SMFA student Vivian Tran’s artistic practice as well as how an early
ZANNA AMANFU ’24 from New York, NY
BLAKE ANDERSON ’24 from Sioux Falls, SD
JOSH COHEN ’24 from Sarasota, FL
MARIE KAZIBWE ’24 from Mount Kisco, NY
exposure to both STEM and humanities still fans Fatima Lawan’s intellectual curiosity to this day.
Curiosity is the theme of this issue of Jumbo, which serves as a window into some of the people and opportunities that await you if you join our community. From faculty mem bers who are eager to teach you and invite you to join them in research, to students who are eager to share their paths to Tufts with you, each page of this issue will, I hope, ignite your curiosity to learn more about what makes our community so special.
Best,
OFFICE OF UNDERGRADUATE ADMISSIONS
Tufts University / Bendetson Hall 2 The Green / Medford, MA 02155 617.627.3170 / admissions.tufts.edu
JT Duck Dean of Admissions
SUSANNAH MURRAY ’24 from Santa Fe, NM VALERIA VELASQUEZ ’23 from Columbia, MO
Produced by the Of ce of Undergraduate Admissions and Edited by Sam Nicol, Admissions Counselor Design by Hecht/Horton Partners
At Tufts, there’s always something to catch your eye, turn your head, or pique your intellectual curiosity. From state-of-the-art research labs to hanging out on the Prez Lawn and everything in between, see how many Tufts traditions, landmarks, and offerings you can spy on this page. Who knows, maybe they’ll open the door to something new to you at Tufts.
The Joey: We call the shuttle that connects the Medford/Somerville campus with Davis Square and Medford Square the Joey. It’s free for all Tufts students!
The Cannon: One of the most popular ways of student expres sion, Jumbos will paint this for championship wins, friends’ birth days, album releases—whatever is most important to them.
Jumbo: Jumbo the elephant is our mascot. He was a very real elephant in the 19th century, and now a life-sized sculpture of him stands tall (12 feet to be exact)
on the academic quad. Taking a picture with him is a rite of passage here at Tufts.
Bessie: Affectionately called the Queen of SMFA at Tufts, Bessie the rhino stands at the entrance to our Fenway campus. She makes a great lunch buddy for those looking for a littlesunshine.
Joyce Cummings Center: Right next to the new Green Line stop, the Cummings Center houses the economics, computer science, math, data science, and entrepreneurship programs.
TUFTS IS KNOWN for its special interest houses. Beginning their second year, our students can live in themed communities with like-minded people. Be they language, culture, identity, or interest, there are options to excite every student. And now there’s one more! Designed for students who just love food and cooking, the Foodie House is set to open in the near future. Get your housing applications (and stomachs) ready!
INSIDE OUT entrepreneurship, technology leadership, engineering management, and innovation.
AHEAD OF THE Massachusetts Climate Summit at Tufts, Senator Ed Markey met students and toured the Tufts Pollinator Initiative Gardens. Awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Tufts in 2019, Senator Markey’s connection to our community is strong. Students were excited by the opportunity to talk climate with one of the leading environmental advocates in the Senate and discuss how local action can affect global change, right here on campus.
WANT TO spend your summers traveling to incredible locations while doing fascinating research? Do we have something for you! Interested Tufts undergraduates can apply to support research around the world in a variety of elds. This summer, students are assisting research on the bioinformatics of coral reefs in French Polynesia, historical earthquake data analysis in Greece and Hungary, and reproductive health of immigrant women in Malaysia, among others.
TUFTS ALUM , author, and historian Nina Sankovitch ’84 recently released her latest award-winning book on the Revolutionary War and how various families helped make it happen. Sankovitch provides incredible detail on how the men and women of the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy families shaped the American Revolution and the roles their personal and family lines played in their search for liberty and opportunity.
DO YOU LOVE Calvin and Hobbes ? Serialized in American newspapers from 1985–1995 and written and drawn by Bill Waterson, this beloved comic strip holds a nostalgic place in many people’s hearts. What is the deeper meaning of a comic strip with two philosophers named in the title? Current student Liam Scanlon designed a course to explore just that. This fall, students led by Liam will investigate the intersections of art, philosophy, and popular culture, with students’ work culminating in the creation of their own four-panel comic strip.
YOU DON’T NEED to visit campus to get a feel for what the student artists at SMFA are getting up to (though you de nitely should if you have the chance!). The pandemic led to the pioneering of virtual exhibitions so that anyone can access the inspiring work of our student artists. Check out the senior thesis program to see what our students can do.
Choosing what you want to study is a difficult choice for many—and Jumbos are no exception. From planning for major requirements to consider ing post-grad life, the journey to declaring your major has a lot of moving parts. However, Tufts students frequently take this chance to combine and create unique possibilities out of their academic inter ests. Vivian Tran ’25 is one such student because she represents the academic excitement that all Jumbos possess.
As a student in the Combined Degree program seeking a BS in cognitive and brain science (CBS) as well as a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) at Tufts, Vivian is making the most out of her time both on the Hill and on the SMFA Fenway campus. Her academic and artistic interests converge with her seeing art as a central part of the human experience, lled with phenom ena like emotion and perception. “Everyone has a unique internal system. It’s more about what’s already inside your brain than the outside world— it’s all how we view it. And that feels really lonely to me. But art can be the bridge between that distance [with others]. Art is one of the best ways of fostering connection and community.”
With her interdisciplinary approach, Vivian seeks to bridge the understandings of art, perception, and
aesthetics. The Combined Degree program allows her to dig deep into what these interests mean to her. “I really want to be an artist in this life… Seeing myself as a scientist, I want to use what I am learning in CBS to make artwork that is universal and is empathic and brave. I want to make work that is able to change people’s lives and how they view the world.”
For Vivian, her college search was rooted in being able to pursue her passions as an artist and a student. “I’m rst-gen,” she noted. “My parents don’t really know how to read and write. They don’t speak English. I want to be able to touch people like [them]—without [them] having to go through all of these degrees just to understand art.”
She adds that “when you look at an art piece, it’s going to be a different experience for every one.” Vivian uses this philosophy to do research at the crux of her art and her studies in CBS. She plans to research the role that generations of family members have played in the formation of art. By doing this, she will discuss how these family ties are expressed and valued through various media. In analyzing history, lineage, and art, Vivian hopes to capture experiences and emotions from those who came before her, with her art serving as a medium toward perceiving the emotions and stories of past
generations. Vivian asserts that family histories are rich and well-worth researching through her studies at Tufts. “Research is the one thing that connects us to the world,” she believes.
Vivian also faced the hardships and challenges of being a rst-generation international student—in the middle of a pandemic, no less. Despite these obstacles, Vivian credits the wonderful people she met here for helping her feel at home at Tufts. She is particularly drawn to the wonderful support of SMFA’s librarians, speci cally Carrie Salazar and Darin Murphy. “My rst time coming to Tufts, Carrie drove me from the airport. I was so scared, I was in a new country, I didn’t know anything, it was my rst time coming to Tufts.” Vivian remembers Carrie telling her, “‘I’m your auntie here, you can always come to me.’” This admirable relationship between faculty, staff, and students is not uncommon at Tufts, but each relationship is special and unique to each member of the Tufts community.
It is evident that Vivian has what it takes to change the world with her art and her scholarship. Her advice for applicants to Tufts is that “if you carry yourself very highly, it will show in what you do.” We have to agree, Vivian.
—BLAKE ANDERSON ’24
“I knew studying cognitive and brain science was going to give me everything I needed to make good art…”
Electronic Music Instrument Design
Music engineering at Tufts is an interdisciplinary effort among various branches of our Computer Science and Music Departments as well as the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) and the School of Engineering. This eclectic program naturally produces some of the most niche and fascinating courses at Tufts. In Electronic Musical Instrument Design, students learn how to create non-standard electronic musical instruments, or “controllers”; incorporating sensors that respond to touch, position, movement, nger pressure, and other human factors. This project-based class challenges students to complete several creative projects, using music hard ware, software, and object-oriented, music-speci c programming languages.
Many students who graduate with a music engineering minor and took this course are computer science students or engineers; showing that, at Tufts, students inter ested in STEM are encouraged to explore the intersection between the arts and their majors.
Are you interested in the craftsmanship of binding books? Do you want to create a book from scratch? Artists’ Books Today is a mixed media, hands-on class that explores bookmaking as an art form. The class draws from the global traditions of Asia, Western Europe, and the Middle East to teach students about the exibility of bookmaking as art. Handmade books can be used to craft narratives, visualize poetry, showcase art, document memoirs, and so much more. Students learn how to bind their own books and embark on a variety of different bookmaking projects—making this the perfect class for someone whose love of books transcends the content of a book’s pages. This class is one of the countless examples of the dynamic nature of SMFA courses and shows how students are encouraged to explore like never before and to work outside the con nes of traditional disciplines.
The Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development is dedicated to the study and well-being of children and families from diverse backgrounds. The department blends psychology, education, public policy, and countless other elds. One of the many courses in this fascinating department is Raising Young Moral Citizens, which focuses on this question: how do children develop a sense of moral responsibility and commitment to the greater good? The course examines the role of parents, teachers, coaches, and other adults in the moral and social develop ment of children and adolescents. Additionally, the context of pressing issues like poverty, racism, violence, and the environment of youths are carefully considered in the discussion. What can parents, family members, and society do to develop civi cally engaged youths who will work for a more just, caring, and equitable society? If you are curious about the developmental growth of children or want to be part of a program that aims to address deep-seated structural inequities, this class, and this department, are perfect for you.
Do you want to scratch that intellectually curious itch? The possibilities for that are endless at Tufts! Whether it’s learning how to make your own electronic musical instruments or discussing the complexities of raising civically engaged and thoughtful children, there’s always a new way to broaden your horizons. Who knows, maybe you’ll nd your major in one of these courses.
Tufts is a delightfully ambitious institution. Every day, the university brings the brilliant minds of students and professors together as they ponder some of our world’s most perplexing questions. To remedy this curiosity and seek answers, Jumbos look toward robust research opportunities. In the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts (A&S), Dean of Research and Professor of Psychology Ayanna Thomas leads the charge.
Dean Thomas has an extensive history of research experience due to her scholarship in the eld of psychology. She has a special interest in memory and cognitive aging, and her research allows her to explore these interests in depth. Tufts, being both a medium-sized liberal arts col lege and a top-tier research institution, allows Dean Thomas and her students to foster meaning ful connections in their lab. “I wanted to go back to a liberal arts school,” Dean Thomas af rmed, “I wanted to go back and have the same kind of interactive class dynamic that I was motivated by as an undergrad. What’s great about Tufts is that it really is the best of both worlds. You still have that liberal arts feel; you still have a really close commu nity with students, and you also have high quality, state-of-the-art research labs with scholars at the forefront of their eld.” As another testament to the unique faculty-student relationships at Tufts, Dean
Thomas has a special fondness for graduations. “I love meeting people’s parents—it’s my favorite part of graduation. And I get to see all the joy and excitement and anticipation that my students have.”
Research at Tufts, according to Dean Thomas, is pleasantly collaborative. Compared to other research institutions, faculty and students interact directly while they work alongside one another. In her own lab, Dean Thomas works with a number of graduate and undergraduate students. The com mitment to teamwork extends across labs, too. Research groups at Tufts are often apt to collabo rate on the most pressing issues in our world. In other words, when multifaceted problems arise in society, Tufts has the interdisciplinary means to address them.
“Researchers and scholars at Tufts really do value civic and community engagement. There is a real commitment to taking what I do in the lab and having a direct application in the world around me…Some of my work has relevance in the criminal justice system, so I have, over the last [few years], engaged as an expert witness for a variety of different kinds of cases, both criminal and civil. Litigation that involves witness testimony sometimes [requires] witnesses to recollect past experiences. My testimony often involves explaining how memory works to judges and juries. This is also
an opportunity for the students working with me to see how the work that they are doing in the lab [has real-world applications]. Sometimes students will accompany me to court to watch my testimony.”
The dedication to research and scholarship at Tufts is no small undertaking. For Dean Thomas, this means taking on a rewarding yet arduous chal lenge. In her role as Dean of Research, she has already set out clear goals of what research in the School of Arts and Sciences aspires to look like.
“My goal is primarily to facilitate research in [the School of] Arts and Sciences. I am also developing ways to structure more concrete time for collabo ration and solving larger-scale problems that are plaguing our society and our local community. I am really trying to structure a research environment in A&S that integrates what we value about not only research and scholarship, but also how it supports our work in the classroom. Thinking about ways to create a space for diverse voices in research is also important in this agenda; thinking about structuring pipelines that get undergrads from underrepresented groups, and who maybe have not had access to some of these research opportuni ties. All of these are aspects of my role as Dean ofResearch.”
BLAKE ANDERSON
PHOTO BY KATHLEEN DOOHER
“Tufts manages to successfully embody a liberal arts school and a large research institution at the same time”
The college search process can feel daunting. We know how easy it is to get overwhelmed when gur ing out where to start, much less in nding the right college(s) for you. That’s where we come in! You probably have a million questions like “what does it take to get in’’ or “how will my extracurriculars be looked at” or “who is the best economics/biology/ political science professor to take classes with.” And some of these can be great questions to ask later on in the process. But before you dive into super speci c questions, we think it would do you well to mull over some deeper questions to help you understand what type of college environment is the best t for you. Plus, that will make ask ing those previous questions even more impactful down the line. So, here are some good questions to ask yourself as you begin your college search process, with some Tufts-speci c answers to boot.
What are your values, and what do you want from your college experience?
> Now I know this is a really big question to start, but the answer to this will help you the most in the long run. One great way to start thinking about how a college or university shows what they value in their students is to look at the ways they talk about them. Think about what a school says it values in its students, and if you are a fan of the kind of people the school attracts, that’s a really good sign! Here at Tufts, we like to say that Jumbos are kind, collaborative, civically engaged, and intellectually playful. We like to say that because it’s true! If you’re walking around campus and look lost, chances are a student will walk up to you and help you nd your way. Professors encourage students to collaborate on assignments and projects because it’s incred ibly important in both your personal growth and professional trajectory. Student activism is strong, and the Tisch College of Civic Life helps everyone on campus stay engaged as active citizens, both in the classroom and in the community. And nally, at Tufts, students like to have fun while doing really impressive things. A favorite story of mine was hear ing how one day in the dining hall, some Jumbos had a lively debate about what exactly constitutes a thermodynamically perfect grilled cheese sand wich. Tufts students are intelligent and grounded, driven and fun, dedicated and supportive. If that sounds like your kind of people, then you’ve found the right spot.
What kind of environment is most bene cial to your success as a student? As a person? What support systems are most important to you?
> For a question like this, think about what resources and institutional support a school offers and whether or not that is what you need to do your best. Does the university provide advisors, and what kinds? Every incoming student at Tufts is assigned a pre-major advisor—a faculty or staff member who is a resource and sounding board as you explore many academic and intellectual paths. And they stick with you until you declare your major! We also have pre-professional advisors who will help you (even as an alum!) prepare for and apply to medi cal, dental, veterinary, and law schools. Our Career Center provides more general support for graduate school, as well as more unique offerings like career communities, which are collections of professional resources and supports tied to speci c industries. Some examples include Education, Nonpro t, & Social Impact; Arts, Communications & Media; and Finance, Consulting, Entrepreneurship, & Business. For academic support, our Student Accessibility and Academic Resource (StAAR) Center helps stu dents advocate for their needs both in and out of the classroom. From writing support, to academic accommodations like extra time on exams, to the new Lyft program for students with mobility impair ments, the StAAR Center is there for you. In terms of communities outside of the classroom, our Division of Student Diversity and Inclusion (DSDI) Centers provide a home and place of belonging for students interested in thinking about social identi ties and the ways they impact our lives and our world. From af nity group spaces to special leader ship and mentoring events, our eight identity-based resource centers in the DSDI provide a home away from home and specialized services for everything students may need.
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What do you want to do outside of the classroom? Extracurriculars, the local area? Internship, research, or co-op opportunities?
> Your time in undergrad will be a lot more than just the classroom. A good t comes from more than just the academic life—it’s everything: student orga nizations, community engagement, location. Some of the most common ways to get involved outside of the classroom at Tufts are through the over 300
student organizations. With the majority of your time spent outside the classroom, nding a community within the broader university is a great way of sup porting your mental health and making life-long friends. There are, of course, more academic ways of spending your time. Undergraduate research is a cornerstone of many students’ experiences, and with labs and projects in nearly every discipline, it’s easy to understand why. But there’s more to college life than what happens on the campus. Tufts is lucky to be in incredible neighborhoods, with our Medford/Somerville campus straddling (you guessed it) the Medford and Somerville city lines just ve miles outside of Boston. And our SMFA Fenway campus is nestled in the Avenue of the Arts amongst world-renowned institutions like the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston right next door. Community events are accessible from our shuttle (called the Joey), and the T (what we call the Boston subway and train system) has a new stop opening right next to the Cummings Center on campus! Tufts also offers opportunities for programs even further away. Students have access to hundreds of pro grams around the world—we even have a campus in Talloires, France that offers summer programs for Tufts students. We also have US-based programs like Tufts-in-Washington where undergraduates interested in political science, international rela tions, civic studies, or American studies spend a semester in Washington, DC taking classes and interning. About half of our juniors go abroad or study away each year, so there are many ways to expand your knowledge and to expand your “places I’ve been” list.
There are lots of ways to think about what it means for a college to be a good t for you, and hopefully this helps you think about what matters most to you in your future college home (and has given you a headstart on guring out Tufts). Whatever your ultimate decision is, going in with clear eyes and a full heart will set you up for success for years down the road. Good luck and have fun!
An important factor in the Jumbo undergraduate experience is the foreign language requirement for all students enrolled in the School of Arts and Sciences. There are many ways of fulfilling this requirement, from studying multiple languages across six semesters, to taking courses on cultures from around the world, to even putting your skills to the test while studying abroad. For those who join entry-level language courses, they often find community and support systems that last for years to come.
BY ZANNA AMANFU
Learning a foreign language can be a crucial component in developing skills to engage in cross-cultural communities. However, beyond language fluency, developing these skills requires a devotion to understanding the philosophies of those native to the region(s) of the language you wish to learn. To reach this level of nuance when learning a second language, you benefit from having passionate instructors in a depart ment that recognizes both the impact of immersion and the impact of patience and practice when helping students build the foundations for language proficiency.
The Department of Romance Studies at Tufts goes above and beyond in this realm, especially with instructors like Maria Isabel Castro, a professor of Spanish at Tufts. I had the pleasure of speaking with Professor Castro and two of her former students, Paula and Edward, over Zoom about their language experience here over the past year. It was clear upon
virtual reunion that the relationships formed during language courses have positively impacted these students far beyond the classroom.
Paula and Ed began their Spanish speaking journey roughly ten years ago, and they both agreed that the lecture-based Spanish courses they had taken prior to Tufts did not serve them as curious students looking to enhance their learning through Spanish courses founded in culture. Ed made the distinction between his previous exposure to language courses in a classroom, stating that Tufts allowed him to develop better comprehension of language and grammar by learning through culture. With an informed emphasis on the multidimensional ity of the culture rather than language alone, Tufts’ foreign language departments cultivate an immersive classroom experience for students looking to move beyond the bounds of lecture-based language courses.
Professor Castro spoke fondly of the personal ful llment that she witnessed amongst students who grew at different paces and at all levels. Regardless of their previous experience with a foreign language, she expressed that, “Tufts stu dents are very curious. They don’t want to just learn Spanish—they want to know how to relate to the culture and if they can go to a country [and use the language].”
Seeing the pure excitement from both Professor Castro and her students, I wondered what class room structures facilitated such fruitful engagement that had students eager to go beyond the offerings available to them. Of the many activities that solidi ed their positive language experience, Paula and Ed agreed that group discussion, coined mesas redondas or roundtables, were especially insight ful. During these roundtable discussions, the class would discuss worldly issues that immediately affect today’s society. Paula expressed how it is dif cult enough to speak eloquently about these concepts in one’s own native language, so becom ing familiar with these conversations in Spanish was both challenging and invaluable. She expanded by expressing that being assigned unfamiliar com position topics encouraged her to apply cumulative knowledge from her time under Professor Castro’s teaching. Ed directly correlated these dif cult roundtable discussions with his enhanced ability to speak in Spanish about topics that he was pas sionate about outside of classroom contexts.
In hearing all of these profoundly positive por trayals of the classroom experience, I tasked Paula, Ed, and Professor Castro with encapsulating their experience in the class with just one word. Paula
prefaced her word by explaining that Professor Castro invited mistakes in the classroom—that is how she found it easiest to learn, knowing that the classroom community had the intention of lifting one another up and growing from mistakes. Ed proclaimed that of ce hours helped him navigate dif cult grammar rules. Despite the demands of his athletic schedule, Professor Castro was recep tive and made time to focus on Ed’s individualized needs as a student. Moreover, he centered his experience on the recurring truth that he looked forward to attending class every day. He previously found it dif cult to feel equally invested in every topic in a class, but with Professor Castro’s instruc tion, he found enrichment in every facet. Paula and Ed’s respective words were “supportive” and “intriguing”; these are exactly the terms one might hope to use when describing their ideal classroom environment. Professor Castro described “won derment” as the overarching feeling of being the teacher in the classroom witnessing the learning.
Any incoming Tufts students looking to expe rience our language departments can expect to immerse themselves in a classroom where their instructors prioritize guided learning founded in culture-based content over immediate mastery.
Across the Charles River on the SMFA Fenway cam pus, students have taken actionable steps toward activism through art. Many student groups at SMFA share similar civic-minded values through their artmaking: including the Eco Arts Club. Eco Arts is spearheaded by two third-year Combined Degree students, Zoee and Laura. Their interests span from biopsychology and colonial-environmental history to metals, print media, papermaking, and beyond.
The origins of Eco Arts began when these two became increasingly inquisitive about sustainable art-making in a class focused on environmental jus tice. They wanted to continue these conversations when the semester came to a close and took initia tive and formed Eco Arts as an acting social space where SMFA students could come together over this mutual interest. Laura wanted people to come to Eco Arts and leave having found community in a casual way—one that deviates from the structure of classroom reading and lecture.
Centering activism within artistic practice
facilitates much needed change in the art world where artists are conscious of the materials they use. Zoee and Laura agreed that activism at SMFA takes on a lot of different roles. It can appear as digi tally produced art in the form of graphics and banners on social media or appear in community-based par ticipatory workshops. As for Eco Arts, Zoee described the experience as the blend between materiality and sustainability: art and material rooted in things like sustainable foraging. In her and Laura’s minds, Eco Arts is a small part of a much larger whole.
The rst few Eco Arts meetings were focused on building community by taking trips to the Fells— woodlands surrounded by beautiful bodies of owing water just outside of Boston. These trips were not just insightful for the participants, but they simultaneously chipped away at the innate hierarchy assumed in participating in student-run clubs. The co-presidents intended for Eco Arts to feel like a col laborative space where all members can contribute. If you want to get involved, you can expect to be
making ink out of plant material, going to the Fells and scavenging while hiking, joining painting and ink workshops, cyanotyping, or working on mending projects like embroidering an old pair of clothes.
Outside of Eco Arts, SMFA conducts workshops in the atrium for collaborative work—building knowl edge around focused areas of the arts while using community as a foundational aspect of activism. Zoee and Laura shouted out the successful Health, Safety, and Sustainability Week run by the SMFA Sustainability Committee, the Tufts University Art Galleries, the Art for Social Change course, and the Garden Club as examples of SMFA support ing activism in its mission and in the classroom. They urge students to use their voices and hold dif cult conversations if they want to initiate these reimagined structures of activism through art. While they do their part in running Eco Arts, their hope is that SMFA will increase outreach and get students connected with even more initiatives in localcommunities.
Art and activism—when intermingled, these two have the potential to shift the tides of social movements. There is a resonance that moves people who engage with art through the lens of activism, and we have seen the rise of this phenomenon over the past half-decade through social media. However, activists have always relied on art to communicate the unspoken and to solve multilayered issues.
Courses at Tufts will constantly push you to think beyond both the textbooks and your comfort zone. Professors empower students to formulate their own research questions, take agency over their coursework, and expand the boundaries of current knowledge. Here are just a few examples of the many ways these assignments are integrated into class curriculums.
BY JOSH COHEN ’24
In the culminating assignment for this course, students were tasked with crafting their “ideal bookshelf” of resources they would use to teach an indepth K–12 course on a topic discussed in the class. Re ecting on the topics, authors, issues, and history that captured each student’s interests throughout the semester, projects had to explore what students believed youth should know as future global citizens. Utilizing formats such as bookshelf illustrations, podcasts, and videos, students drew from thinkers like W.E.B. DuBois, James Baldwin, and Ta-Nehisi Coates to create their vision. Example submissions included one project titled “The Politics of Forgetting: Confronting Colonial Amnesia in Imperial Nations” that included a scoping review of museum and monument ethics.
Drawing on psychological concepts explored through the course to examine the cultural experiences of people of African descent and how these experi ences shape current individual perspectives, students analyzed the lyrics of a hip-hop song by a Black artist and related them to the class themes. Through units such as mental health, relationships and families, intersectionality, and history and roots, students were encouraged to apply these concepts to one of the most popular art forms in the world. Songs selected by students were later compiled into an open, collaborative playlist for the entire class to appreciate.
In this survey community health course on the architecture and organization of the US healthcare system, students were challenged to turn a critical eye to their own health insurance plans. Students systematically dissected each component of their health plans and evaluated the bene ts, premiums, costsharing mechanisms, and other features to gain an intimate understanding of these important documents. In addition to comprehensively reviewing the components of healthcare on a systems level, students were empowered to take what they had learned from the course into their own lives to thoughtfully critique their own coverage. For many students with interests in shaping health care and health policy, this exercise closely modeled the type of exciting inquiry that students could expect in the eld of population and community health.
Charged with discussing tools to identify and overcome prejudices in what museums show and the stories they tell, students centered their nal exposi tions on one of the most powerful and in uential art institutions—the Prado Museum in Spain. During the Spanish Civil War, a period de ned by chaos and
instability, the massive organizational feat of protecting this source of national heritage has been praised as perhaps the “biggest efforts to save works of art in history.” In their nal assignment, students were prompted to research examples of artwork in the museum and re ect on the importance of art in wartime. Making connections across time periods and artistic movements, students explored the daring history of protecting art from impending con icts and the cultural signi cance of preserving these in uential paintings.
Data structures, a core component to the computer science program at Tufts, are the methods and algorithms which are responsible for the storage, organiza tion, and formatting of data values. As emerging coding scientists primed for careers across emerging technology disciplines, students in this course were presented with a unique opportunity to apply the data structures developed in the course to real-life phenomena. Inspired by the exciting new extension of the MBTA Green Line to Tufts’ campus at College Ave. Station, scheduled to be completed by the end of 2022, students were assigned the project of creating ef cient code for this train system. In their projects, students were tasked with applying algorithms to keep track of passengers embarking and disembarking trains and moving the train cars between stations.
Praise has used her time at Tufts to better understand what really drives her as a student, friend, and commu nity member. When she’s not jamming out to Akon or conducting research in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, Praise can be found serving as a Peer Leader in the Africana Center, working with the Minority Association of Pre-Health Students, and looking for new foods to try in Davis Square and beyond. We hope that this glimpse into the life of one incredible Jumbo can help you see the kind, accepting, and engaging com munity that we all build together.
Which aspects of the Tufts undergraduate experience prompt your application? In short, “Why Tufts?” (100–150 words)
When I was planning my visit to Tufts, I was not expecting to see anything that I had not seen in other schools. But during the tour, I quickly fell in love with the school’s open and evolving culture that involves its entire student body. Tufts is a school of acceptance and tolerance, and treats each student with genuine care. The students and faculty are able to immerse themselves in the diversity and adventure that lives within Medford, Boston, and beyond in order to stimulate a more colorful and active conversation in the classroom. Here, I am sup ported in my passion for civic engagement while juggling my learning in psychology, medicine, and education. This university has a focus on community that allows me to supplement my learning with service. At Tufts, what I learn in the classroom is just as important as what I am doing in the community.
Where are you on your journey of engaging with or ghting for social justice? (200–250 words)
My ght for social justice in education has led me to pursue a research project that focuses on imposter syndrome of Black students in reformed intro STEM classes at Tufts. I am explor ing how like (and unlike) racial identities of Black students and Learning Assistants impact feelings of imposter syndrome and performance in class. My hope is that this study will lead to more effective ways of using Learning Assistants to meet the needs of Black students in STEM courses and majors. With the percentage of the undergrad population identifying as Black being in the single digits and even fewer of the faculty identifying as Black at Tufts, one can’t begin to imagine just how small these numbers are within the STEM departments. However, I believe that the results of this research will shed some light on new practices that Tufts University can implement in best supporting its Black students and playing their part in closing the educational gap. I want to do my part in closing that educational and achievement gap, which exists from early childhood education to postgraduate education. The root cause of the educational and achievement gap originates from disparities in socioeconomic status, generational poverty, and standardized testing (just to name a few). But the common denomi nator remains race. As a rst-generation student from Nigeria in STEM, there are many battles that I face at Tufts. As I mentioned in my “Why Tufts?” essay, Tufts is a school that goes above and beyond for its students, but like any other PWI, there is always room for improvement.
Scan here for the most up-to-date statistics on diversity at Tufts.
As the world around us changes, our institutions need to adapt as well. Tufts’ own Institute for Research on Learning and Instruction (IRLI) acts as a research incubator, supporting professors who are seeking to understand patterns in education, how students approach learning, and effective teaching methodology. IRLI then works with the Tufts administration and faculty to implement changes to curricula and teaching approaches accordingly. Such an institute is one of the rst of its kind—hence why the acronym is pronounced “early!”
rior to his arrival at Tufts, Professor David Hammer, the co-director of the Institute for Research on Learning and Instruction (IRLI), was a professor of physics and conducted research within the Department of Education. He described his position as a “weird” one, studying education as a STEM professor, but he felt that this duality should be more common. He believes that studying education made him a better physics professor, and that the enrichment he received by studying both elds would be advan tageous to fellow faculty. Therein lies the inspiration for the creation of a research institute focused on the study of learning.
After joining the Tufts faculty, Professor Hammer proposed his idea to the Tufts administration and they enthusiastically approved. After gaining funding from a generous donor, IRLI was launched in December of 2018. IRLI’s mission is to introduce research on learning and instruction within STEM departments at Tufts. Though as of now it is only focusing on STEM elds, IRLI is hoping to expand its scope to include the humanities, social sci ences, and even the graduate and professional schools in the future.
IRLI acknowledges that advancements in tech nology and the ever-evolving needs of society have made the role of a university subject to transforma tion—and that’s a great thing! Higher education needs to adapt, and by conducting research on learning at Tufts, IRLI allows for strategic implemen tation of necessary changes to curricula within speci c courses and departments, as well as within institutional pedagogy as a whole.
“A lot of work falls under studies on how stu dents approach learning,” Hammer tells me. “Are students just trying to complete tasks, or are they genuinely trying to learn?” Much of the work being conducted at IRLI begins at the IRLI Start meetings: a research incubator for faculty who are interested in getting involved with research on learning and instruction at Tufts. At these meetings, collaborating faculty meet and identify educational phenomena that they wish to explore. From there, they pro pose research questions and project proposals, which are eligible for funding from IRLI for even greater support and exploration. Project titles have spanned from “How Students Frame What They’re Doing in Labs” to “Engineering Tools for Education Research” to “Increasing Engagement and Access in STEM: Development of Virtual Laboratories that Elicit Engineering Epistemic Practices.” The work
done at IRLI was typically showcased at symposia and interactive panel discus sions, but with new restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, events have largely shifted to online platforms.
The work being done at IRLI impacts all professors at Tufts, not just those directly connected to the institute. The work of IRLI is carried into faculty meetings, classrooms, research labs, and between pro fessors dedicated to re ning their pedagogy.
Even educators and activists from outside Tufts are able to bring their knowledge and experience to Tufts through IRLI programs. The IRLI Colloquia allow outside researchers to hold talks and Q&As, provide hands-on workshops, and run seminars and events ranging from “Reimagining Educational Problems: The Transformative Potential of Critical Cultural Research for Equity in Engineering Education” to “Learning Through Thinking Made Visible: The Role of Feedback and Interactions in Hybrid Learning Environments.” As a repository for knowledge, IRLI’s commitment to improving pedagogical practices across the STEM elds is unmatched through its
The missions for both IRLI and the CSD complement each other incredibly well. Thinking about the ways implicit bias is re ected in STEM classrooms and other academic spaces is one important way that Tufts professors support inclusivity in their pedagogy and learning environments. Currently, two members of the CSD participate in the IRLI Start program, where they discuss their work on STEM-related edu cational research projects. “The IRLI Start meetings have become a learning community,” LaMotte says. Participating in the meetings has enabled the CSD to “obtain input and feedback on our projects, as well as provide input and feedback to others on theirprojects.”
IRLI acknowledges that antiracism is central to re ning and reforming traditional education models in order to increase equity. That was the impetus for the creation of a graduate course called How to Be an Antiracist STEM Educator co-taught by Dr. LaMotte and Professor Julia Goueva. Offered through the Department of Education and sponsored by both the CSD and IRLI, this course was designed with graduate students in mind to help prepare them for current and future teaching assignments. This class
dedication to expanding professors’ ideas of how to run a classroom with partnerships and programs like these.
IRLI also partners and works closely with the Center for STEM Diversity (CSD). The CSD works with both the School of Engineering and the School of Arts and Sciences to foster a diverse and inclu sive science and engineering learning environment. According to then program director and current Associate Dean of Student Diversity and Inclusion Dr. Ellise LaMotte, their goals are to “develop best practices for recruiting and retaining underrepre sented undergraduate and graduate students and foster a diverse and inclusive STEM community.”
served as a dedicated space for understanding and applying Ibram X. Kendi’s seminal How to Be an Antiracist to the STEM classroom. Truly the course was “a powerful experience for all,” LaMotte says.
IRLI is one of the rst of its kind. Directed by educators who are dedicated to supporting the expansion of pedagogical practices within STEM elds, IRLI is a great example of the steps Tufts takes to keep its educators, and thus its students, at the forefront of what a twenty- rst century college classroom can be. We’re incredibly proud of the work they’ve accomplished thus far and can’t wait to learn about their future research!
HIGHER EDUCATION needs to adapt, and by conducting research on learning at Tufts, IRLI allows for strategic implementation of necessary changes to curricula within speci c courses and departments, as well as within institutional pedagogy as a whole.
A capable and dynamic athlete with one college season under his belt, goalkeeper Erik Lauta ’25 has already proven himself to be a standout Division III player. Here, he sits down with Coach Kyle Dezotell to discuss his recruiting process, the Tufts soccer team culture, and his aspirations of becoming a professional player.
BY VALERIA VELASQUEZ ’23
KYLE DEZOTELL (KD): I’ve coached since I got out of college. I actually tried to play after college and quickly realized I probably was not good enough to be a real pro. I was lucky enough to get into coaching and fell in love with it. I bounced around and coached at a number of lower-end Division III schools—really focusing on improving those pro grams and having success. Tufts is the fth program I have worked at in seventeen years—it’s a dream job. The transition from the previous coach in 2020, now at Harvard and a good friend of mine, was as smooth as can be.
ERIK LAUTA (EL): COVID hit halfway through my junior year, which made things dif cult because that is the prime time for recruiting. I had been talking to highly academic schools for a long time, but the pandemic then made it dif cult for coaches to see me. Coach Dez reached out to me in May at the end of my junior year. We got in touch and I learned more about Tufts, which was a school I did not really know much about. When you’re from the West Coast, you don’t really know about the smaller schools—even if they are as prestigious as Tufts. The academic prowess of Tufts and the opportunities I was offered by the team quickly made it my number one choice over other schools.
EL: Before I committed to Tufts, I reached out to teammate Woovin Shin, who is a junior here and played at the same club I did in California. He told
me that the best thing about the Tufts program is that the team truly is family. You hear this sort of thing when being recruited, but you don’t really realize how true it is until you get here. The cap tains work with us before we start training with the coaches, and as soon as I started getting to know my teammates, I fell in love with the program. All the guys on the team are good guys, we have excellent coaches, staff, training—everything.
KD: When going through the recruiting process, we look for students who are both academically talented and great athletes. We try to nd student-athletes who want to compete at national championships and NESCAC championships but don’t want to sac ri ce their academic, cultural, and social interests. Players here can compete at a national champion ship, get a 4.0 GPA, study abroad their junior year,
and not miss out on the countless clubs and oppor tunities that exist on campus. For us, soccer is a really, really important piece of our student-athletes’ Tufts experience, but it is just one piece of what they do—I really believe that. We really encourage them to take advantage of everything Tufts has to offer, not just athletics.
Erik is a freshman goalkeeper. Is this typical for a rst-year student?
KD: The line that we try to recruit on is that we want to recruit athletes who truly could be D-I players, but come to D-III because of the academics and for what a Tufts education looks like and can mean for their future and their life. There was a situation here, where there was some turnover in the program and the goalkeeper position was there to be won.
We have a lot of wonderful goalkeepers, and Erik had the opportunity to compete against another top choice and ultimately won. The good thing about this program is that we are always going to have healthy competition because we’re always going to have good players.
What impact has your relationship with Coach Dezotell had on your Tufts experience?
EL: Starting during the preseason, I immediately wanted to show Coach Dez why I deserved to be on the team and become a goalkeeper. Athletically, Coach has pushed me, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous during the preseason. He helped me build con dence, especially during my rst few games, and he’s pushing me to be the best athlete I can possibly be and not letting me slow down or slack off. The other coaches, Max Lichtenstein and Mark Waterman, and the entire coaching staff, have done a really good job at helping me adapt to col lege soccer.
KD: Early on in preseason when Erik was working for the goalkeeper position, I thought to myself that there aren’t too many D-III soccer players that can do what he does. He’s as athletic as a goalkeeper can be which is why Erik aspires to become a pro fessional goalkeeper. At the end of the day, what is important for Erik is that we continue to support him and work hard and that he continues to become the best athlete, leader, and teammate he can be. The goalkeeper is often a loud voice and instills con dence in his team, and Erik does that as a rst-year already, which is unique. Ultimately, he’s going to graduate with an amazing soccer career and an amazing education. Additionally, there are moments where you look back on the season as coach, and recognize that Erik made a play or a save that—without it—would have likely resulted in a loss. There was a speci c moment in a game against Stevens Institute of Technology where we were initially losing. I imagine a lot of athletes would have felt pretty defeated and under a lot of pressure. But Erik, who already has plenty of con dence and thrives in these high-pressure moments, stepped up, made a save, and allowed us to continue. A round or two later, we won.
EL: That moment felt so great. It was de nitely the craziest moment of my soccer career, in terms of how big that moment was. It was just such a fan tastic and unpredictable game and at that moment, we could have lost and the team’s seniors’ college soccer careers would have been over. I was never nervous—I honestly enjoyed it—but the relief that hit me after making that save was incredible.
“I’ve found that any time I try to bring in other interdisciplinary aspects, I’ve never been shut down by aprofessor”BY KATHLEEN DOOHER
I sit down to interview Fatima Lawan in a rather nondescript study room of Tisch Library. When she comes in, she lights up the room with her impec cably coordinated all-blue out t, complete with a set of tiny, blue mushroom earrings. We discuss her journey to Tufts, the parallels and differences between the Nigerian and American healthcare sys tems, and her passion for medicine. I ask her why she aspires to become a doctor, and she ends her response with, “I love people. I also love to talk—I love to talk.” Towards the very end of our interview, she brie y mentions that she applied to the Tufts Early Assurance Program, which guarantees a spot at the Tufts Medical School. “Wait, did you get in?” I ask. As soon as she con rms this tremendous achievement I heartily congratulate her, feeling a sense of joy, relief, and excitement. In the moments between laughter and thought-provoking conversa tion, I acknowledge that she is exactly the type of person anyone would love to have for a doctor: warm, communicative, incredibly intelligent, and most of all, compassionate.
Fatima Lawan was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, where she picked the path of a STEM stu dent in the Nigerian education system. Though she felt fortunate that the interest she picked early on continued to match her aspirations, she always yearned to explore the liberal arts. “In my high school, we had ‘science’ students and ‘art’ students. We chose very rigid tracks. I loved phys ics and literature—but I couldn’t take both,” she explains. Early in her college search process, Fatima considered attending college in the United
Kingdom, as her two older sisters had done. However, she quickly changed her attention to the United States, believing that the US higher educa tion system would give her more time to explore a variety of interests before attending medical school. Fatima rst heard about Tufts when she sat down with an advisor who worked for Education USA Lagos, an organization dedicated to helping highachieving Nigerian students get admitted to and attend US colleges and universities. “My advisor looked at me and said, ‘Hmm, I remember meeting someone from this school called Tufts two and a half years ago—they remind me of you,’” Fatima recounts. “It turned out to be a good match.”
At Tufts, Fatima is a biology and environmental studies double major, co-president of Tufts Mock Trial, and a member of the Maternal Advocacy and Research for Community Health (MARCH) execu tive board. MARCH is an undergraduate student organization focused on addressing maternal health and child health disparities, especially in regards to BIPOC communities at local and global levels. Her main research interests are understand ing the effects of systematic oppression on the healthcare system and the impacts of COVID-19 on communities of color. She recalls her experience in Introduction to Environmental Studies, where she felt that learning about case studies and reading research papers felt validating because there were real scienti c explanations to her lived experiences. Fatima constantly applies her environmental stud ies background to ask bigger picture questions, especially in her biology and chemistry classes.
“Sometimes even when classes are phrased as ‘hard’ STEM classes, I’ve found that any time I try to bring in other interdisciplinary aspects, I’ve never been shut down by a professor,” she states. Her emphasis on bringing in a “human factor” is pro nounced in the way she approaches academics and in the way she views medicine.
Though Fatima has always wanted to be a doctor, she admits that pursuing it has often felt intimidating—in her head, nothing is quite as chal lenging as taking on the multifaceted role of being a doctor. However, throughout her time at Tufts, she has developed a “Yes, and?” attitude: she acknowledges something’s tremendous weight and—despite all odds—pursues it diligently. Additionally, she aims to be the representation she feels is lacking in the healthcare system and hopes to specialize in women and children’s patient care.“Thinking about it as a Muslim woman, gener ally speaking, I’m much more comfortable when treated by someone who looks like me,” she states. She also feels passionate about the importance of female doctors, especially when treating women who have recently dealt with sexual assault or harassment and prefer to be in the presence of other women. “I haven’t seen enough Black women doing this type of work, or people that look like me, and if I haven’t seen people that look like me, I am a person that looks like me,” she states. With the sense that her dreams are becoming a reality, Fatima Lawan is ready for what’s to come—she’s ready to be the change she wants to see.
—VALERIA VELASQUEZ ’23
By Susannah Murray ’24
One of the most unique aspects of the Tufts experience is the opportunity to engage with your interests anywhere in the world—and with the Civic Semester program, Jumbos can do so from day one. Susannah reached out to the First-Year Global Programs of ce in the Tisch College of Civic Life to provide you with all the information you need to know about Civic Semester.
ny Tufts student can tell you that our school is an undeniably civically-minded institution. Our collective passion for social change exists among individual students, lays the founda tion for groups we organize and commit to, and goes all the way up to the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life. Tisch College is unique to Tufts, and it seeks to develop Jumbos into active citizens who are committed to improving the social and politi cal frameworks of Tufts, the US, and the world. In building civic studies as a new academic disci pline, Tisch College began offering a civic studies major in 2018 (believed to be the rst program of its kind in the world!) and an entrepreneurship for social impact minor. But beyond the classroom, Tisch College has opportunities for students from all backgrounds and interests looking to gain civic experience, from speaker events to research to structured programs. One of these programs open to admitted rst-year Arts and Sciences (A&S) stu dents is the Tufts Civic Semester.
The Civic Semester program takes place during a student’s rst semester at Tufts. Grounded in social justice work and designed to set students on a path of lifelong civic engagement, it pairs academic courses with learning from and with community organizations in the areas they are visiting. In the years the program has been run ning, students have spent the semester in both the American Southwest and Urubamba, Peru. It is an opportunity to travel and see a different part of the US or the world for both domestic and inter national students while engaging with those new communities in a deep and meaningful way. Sherri Sklarwitz, the Director of Student Programs, says the program gives students “the chance to think about their own identity and the ways they can cre ate social change through connections with each other, connections with community partners, and connections with nature.”
Civic Semester began in 2019 with its rst group in the Sacred Valley in Peru and added the American
Southwest this past year. In the fall of 2022, the program is planning to only run in the Peru loca tion. The cohorts themselves are made up of just 10–12 students, and they spend the entire semester together; working with each other in their classes, the house they share, and the community they join. The program involves a full semester of classes, but students start in the middle of the summer so they have more time during the traditional fall calendar to do their other activities with a more manageable course load. Jessye Crowe-Rothstein, the Tufts FirstYear Global Programs Manager, says they “try to build academics to mirror both the place and the language skills they might need [and] the types of visits that they are doing on the ground.” A student’s typical day (though it de nitely varies throughout the semester) can involve some combination of schoolwork, explor ing the surrounding nature, and visiting and working with their community partners.
The academic courses that students participate in provide the perfect background knowledge for this community work as well as space for re ection that is tailored to the location. In the Southwest, the main program themes center immigrant rights, indigenous sovereignty, and environmental sus tainability. Most of the community organization visits are with groups that focus on those speci c issues, and the classes align with them as well, with students taking environmental studies or Latinx
history courses to craft a fully integrated learning experience. In Peru, students do in-depth study in community health, arts and culture, and the envi ronment and agriculture. Many classes are focused around language, culture, and the history of the region. The location of a student’s Civic Semester is central to the experience. Isaac Leib, a current rst-year student who spent his rst semester in the American Southwest, remembers the spaces he traveled to, from the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona to Truchas Peak in New Mexico to El Paso, Texas, as being infused with meaning and just as impactful as the academics.
Much like the academics, the community ser vice that students engage in is tailored to each location. One or two days a week are spent on an organization visit, where students meet different staff members and leaders from the group and learn about what they do and the issues that they’re trying to address in their community. Wherever pos sible, students look to support these organizations’ ongoing projects. This past year, students spent time picking peppers at a farm, doing clerical work with an immigrant law center, going on water drops in the desert for migrants near the border, and paint ing a mural at a shelter. All along the way, students participate in powerful discussions and build lifechanging connections.
Part of the way students are able to develop
“TUFTS CIVIC SEMESTER IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO TRAVEL AND SEE A DIFFERENT PART OF THE UNITED STATES OR THE WORLD WHILE ENGAGING WITH THOSE NEW COMMUNITIES IN A DEEP AND MEANINGFUL WAY.”
these connections is through the intentional com munity building aspect of the program. Students are placed into these small groups and form deep friendships. Then, once returning to Tufts, they have a group of people to travel through college with. From an outside perspective, Jessye Crowe-Rothstein has seen the importance of this experience “coming back and know[ing] that you have this group of people who’ve done something similar, and under stand that transition. You get to join this network of other like-minded students, which has been, I think, really impactful for a lot of our students.”
After spending so much time together, working as a cohort on everything from big civic projects to cooking dinner with local produce, students start their second semester at Tufts with a strong core group. “I’m still a freshman,” Isaac Leib said, “but I see the people I traveled with remaining some of my closest friends for a long time to come.”
Crowe-Rothstein nds that many students inter ested in the program worry about “missing out” on their rst semester at Tufts and coming back in the middle of the year without their friend network picked out. Not only does she nd that students come out of the program with a wide-reaching and strong community, but also that most sec ond semester rst-years who didn’t go on a Civic Semester trip are still guring it all out, anyway. Civic
Semester students nd camaraderie with the rest of their class year as everyone tests out different majors and nds student groups that align with their interests and personal goals.
In fact, a Civic Semester experience can often aid students in their journeys to nd what they’re passionate about. Waideen Wright, who went to Peru in 2019, said that “grappling with a language I’m not uent in taught me to make mistakes openly in order to learn, grow, and connect with others… Thinking about how those awkward moments shaped my most meaningful memories, I felt encouraged to venture out of my comfort zone in many situa tions in terms of academia, extracurriculars, and friendships!” The experiences students have while on Civic Semester can both instill con dence and leadership skills and provide meaningful moments that will guide the rest of their lives. Tackling these different issues often in uences understandings of what students are bringing to their academic courses and also their own ideas about what they might want to pursue in the future. Isaac Leib remembers Flowers and Bullets, an organization in Tucson that created a community farm on the plot of a closed elementary school. Seeing the trans formation of the space inspired his own thinking when returning to Somerville as well as aspirations for his hometown. “The amount of motivation and
direction the Civic Semester gives you in terms of what you want to do with yourself and your abilities in college and after college, and what truly mat ters to you, is priceless,” he said. The kind of civic engagement students participate in while in Peru or the Southwest doesn’t stay there—it is carried with them and continually engaged with while at Tufts and beyond.
If you are excited by all this and want to learn more about how you could be involved, you are exactly the kind of student the Civic Semester pro gram is looking for. Crowe-Rothstein says that “core to the experience and to what we’re looking for is a really strong interest in social justice issues and really wanting to dig into these complex and chal lenging issues that the communities you’re going to be in and the larger world are facing.” Sherri Sklarwitz adds that “all participants have a strong desire to learn about communities and the ways they can support communities, even though each person brings their own unique passion to this work.” If this sounds like you, Civic Semester could be an amazing opportunity to grow into an agent of social change at Tufts! In addition to nding your unique path on your civic journey, you’ll be able to join a group of incredible and diverse students who, like you, are all looking to leave the world better than they found it.
Holding up a standard toothbrush, the unassuming claim-to-fame of the Tufts engineering program and developed by a former human factors professor and researcher, Professor of the Practice James Intriligator passionately describes the ingenu ity of the essential hygiene product. The Reach® toothbrush, with its recognizably bent head, angled brushes, and thumb grip, represents the thought ful integration of many human factors principles at the intersection of understanding physical, cogni tive, and emotional constraints in the engineering and product design processes. From phone keypad layouts that maximize human cognition, to an inti mate understanding of emotionality in human-robot interactions, Professor Intriligator encapsulates the collaboration and curiosity-driven work of human factors engineering as “trying to get students to think out of the box because there’s an in nite number of boxes. The design process is really glid ing through this in nite space to try and nd the right constraints and solutions to design awesome products for humans.”
Throughout his academic and professional careers, Professor Intriligator has enthusiastically chased his intellectual passions and personal curi osities. As an undergraduate, he navigated between the elds of electrical engineering, computer sci ence, math, and philosophy before ultimately discovering his interest in neuroscience. Later pursuing his PhD in cognitive neuroscience, with a speci c focus in visual perception psychology, he found himself energized by the limitless potential for collaborating with others and subsequently took on positions across both academic and industry
settings. Engaging meaningfully with a range of projects is important to Intriligator because “being curious about all sorts of topics across domains is something that [he] nds great energy in—[he] nds enjoyment in being interdisciplinarily curious.” From studying transcranial magnetic stimulation and ocular movements, to internet company think tanks and various business ventures such as devel oping Europe’s leading consumer psychology and business program, it’s easy to see how he puts this curiosity into practice. Now as the program director for human factors engineering at Tufts, Professor Intriligator utilizes his unique background and wealth of diverse experiences to empower the engineers of tomorrow. He is energized about shaping emerging human factors engineers who “combine the analytical thinking of an engineer with the empathetic thinking of psychologists and sociologists and the creativity of a designer.” It is the convergence of these skills that he believes will position students to maintain an essential role in emerging technologies.
By nature, human factors engineering is a con stantly evolving science, and Professor Intriligator is motivated to push the eld towards what he calls “Human Factors X,” or the integration of emo tional constraints in the design and engineering process. Through a series of captivating courses such as Human Factors Product Design, Engineering Psychology, and Consumer Psychology, Professor Intriligator challenges students to engage directly with communities and prioritize social enterprise, social justice, and engineering for social good. During his two-year appointment as a Tisch College Faculty
Fellow, Professor Intriligator proposed research to facilitate students working with local groups to design experiences and services because he “tries to get students working on real projects.” Currently, students in his Human Factors for Product Design course are actively developing projects such as designing websites for Boston-based charities, a novel mobile app for a toy company based in Wales, and reminiscent memory therapy booths.
Outside of the School of Engineering, Professor Intriligator has consistently marveled at the pas sionate, creative, and socially-conscious student body at Tufts which has enriched his experience as a faculty member. Serving on the board of the Experimental College and collaboratively developing courses on topics like the future of self-driving cars, he appreciates that Jumbos are willing to move outside their comfort zones. As a whole, he shares, “Tufts students are smart, exploratory, and socially motivated. They have passions and are willing to put time, energy, and resources into following those ambitions. These aspects of Tufts students make it a wonderful place to be”
Importantly, Professor Intriligator is commit ted to maintaining an open and accessible space for students to chat about their ambitions, career goals, and research involvement. Committed to ensuring Tufts students thrive both personally and academically, and re ecting on a career driven by genuine curiosity, he implores students “... not to only do what you are told, but to wholeheartedly pursue your own passions and interests.”
—JOSH COHEN ’24
OF THE
IN
AND DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC
Professor Intriligator is committed to maintaining an open and accessible space for students to chat about their ambitions, career goals, and research involvement.
Regardless of time of year, there is always something fun and unique to nd in the Tufts area. Whether you’re on the hunt for a new-to-you vinyl record, a one-of-a-kind piece of art to add some color to your room’s wall, or some fresh fruit and vegetables straight from local farms, there’s always something fresh and cool to brighten your day.
BY SUSANNAH MURRAY ’24During the warmer months, the ea market is held every Sunday in Davis Square. Stalls have every thing from homemade jewelry to vintage clothing and records to live plants. Both Somerville locals and Tufts students love to make the walk down to the market to stroll through the rows of vendors and look at that week’s offerings. Local artists get to show off their original works and pieces of upcycled clothing, and others display their vintage collections. Whether you’re looking for something speci c or are just along for the treasure hunt, visiting the Davis Flea is a great way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Look out for the Somerville Mobile Farmers Market—they relocate throughout the week, offering fresh, affordable, local produce every where they go. They can be found at the North Street housing development, about a ten min ute walk from campus, on Saturday mornings between 10:00am and 12:00pm! They do great work combating food insecurity by offering fresh fruits and vegetables at affordable prices from July through October, making them a community staple and gem.
If you’re looking to get into the city on your week end and nd some special pieces to take home, check out the SoWa markets! SoWa (South of Washington) is one of Boston’s art and design districts. On Sundays in October, the SoWa Open Market is full of artist and vendor stalls. On Sundays year round, the indoor vintage market is open for people to come shop the curated collec tions of clothing, furniture, and art. Outside you can nd crafts and food, and inside you can sort through boxes of old postcards, racks of leather jackets, and trays of funky jewelry. With so much to see, you can spend a whole day here before it’s time to hop back on the T at Broadway to head home with your unique nds.
Getting local produce isn’t limited to the warm months! The Somerville Winter Farmers Market is open every Saturday during the winter at the Center for the Arts at the Armory. Vendors offer fresh produce, cheese, eggs, meats, sh, breads, tamales, Peruvian pastries, chocolate, and so much more. And in case you’re not already sold, the market also boasts live music from local musi cians to enjoy with a hot beverage in hand from their cozy café.
BY JOSH COHEN ’24
Perhaps one of the most highly-anticipated connections for rst-year students—the roommate. No sweat, we’ve got you covered! Prior to matriculation, incoming rst-year students are sent a housing survey where they have the opportunity to share their living prefer ences, such as the time they wake up, use of electronics and video gaming, and cleanliness. Ultimately, this information is collected by the Of ce of Residential Life and Learning to assign students who are highly compatible as roommates.
Next—the room. As on-campus housing is guaranteed and required for all rst- and second-year students at Tufts, residential halls are in uential features of our campus. Ranging from small, identity-based wood frame houses to larger and more traditional residence halls, there is no one type of room. For many rst-year students assigned to a traditional double, you can expect two twin XL beds, two desks with plenty of storage, two dressers, and two closets. Also, many residence halls contain modern and comfortable shared spaces, such as lounges and fully-equipped kitchens. Cookie night, anyone?
What do residential buildings actually look like? Providing a range of housing options stratified by class year, Tufts is intentional about offering a dynamic set of living arrangements for students. Generally, rst-year students reside in traditional residence halls such as Houston, Miller, Hodgdon, and Carmichael Halls. First-year BFA students live in historic, renovated brownstones just a short walk from the SMFA Fenway campus. These buildings are designed speci cally with community-building in mind and include plenty of communal spaces and study rooms for new students to begin their journey at Tufts. Second-year halls consist of a mixture of traditionalstyle (Lewis, Harleston, and Stratton Halls), four to ten person suites (Harleston and Wren Halls), and apartment-style buildings (Latin Way and Hillsides Apartments). Additionally, continuing students also have the ability to select to live in any of our identity-based, special interest houses. Notably, students can apply to create their own theme hous ing with their peers. Recently, the Tufts Foodie House was established, centering students’ shared passion for food! Whether you live uphill in the heart of the academic quad and nearest to Carmichael Dining Center, or downhill with close proximity to Davis Square and the Mayer Campus Center, your residential community will undoubtedly shape your Tufts experience.
At Tufts, residence halls are supported by several types of enthusi astic professional and student staff members who are committed to fostering community and facilitating friendships. Through hall programming such as movie nights, trivia events, embroidery tutori als, and pizza decorating, residential life staff are highly skilled at building intentional communities. Student staff members are also dedicated peer mentors who support students’ personal and aca demic growth and connect students to campus resources.
Residential life at Tufts is one of the most de ning and ful lling components of the college experience. Ask any Tufts student and they will tell you that some of their most meaningful relationships have emerged from the spaces and communities shared in residence halls. So, what’s in a residence hall? What makes these spaces so unique? Let’s break it down.
Cost of
Tuition and fees
and board (meal plan)
Expected
Your award may include:
Your Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is the amount your family is expected to pay for college for the academic year. It is calculated from the information provided on your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), CSS Pro le, and your family’s federal tax returns. Your nancial need is the difference between the annual cost of attendance and your calculated family contribution.
nancial aid package will make up the difference, for all four years—even if your family’s situation changes. We generally do not include student loans for students whose families earn less than $60,000 per year. All Tufts nancial aid is need-based—we do not offer merit-based scholarships or athletic scholarships.
*Grants are need-based gift aid that are not paid back.
COMPLETE THE REQUIRED DOCUMENTS:
Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)* https://fafsa.ed.gov/ Tufts code: 002219
Cost: free
Scholarship Service (CSS) Pro le https://csspro le.collegeboard.org/ Tufts code: 3901
Cost: $25 initial fee plus $16
With nearly 150 majors and minors, 30 interdisciplinary programs, and the courses of the Experimental College, Tufts’ offerings require more than a brief skimming, so you can nd an expansion of this quick list on our website. But in the meantime, skim away. Just note that Tufts’ undergraduate programs are offered in three schools: Arts and Sciences, Engineering, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Students may take classes across schools, and many students do.
Africana Studies
American Studies Anthropology Applied Environmental Studies Applied Mathematics Applied Physics Arabic Archaeology
Architectural Studies Astrophysics Biochemistry Biology
Biomedical Sciences1 Biopsychology Biotechnology1 Chemical Physics Chemistry
Child Study and Human Development
Chinese Civic Studies1
Classical Studies Clinical Psychology Cognitive and Brain Science Community Health Computer Science Economics Education1 English Environmental Geology Environmental Studies1 Film and Media Studies French Geological Sciences
German Language and CulturalStudies
German Studies Greek Greek and Latin History
History of Art and Architecture
Human Factors Engineering Interdisciplinary Studies International Literary and Visual Studies
International Relations Italian Studies Japanese Judaic Studies Latin Latin American Studies Mathematics Middle Eastern Studies Music, Sound, and Culture Philosophy Physics Political Science Psychology
Quantitative Economics Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora Studies
Religion Russian and Eastern European Studies
Russian Language and CulturalStudies Science, Technology, and Society1
Sociology
Spanish Cultural Studies Spanish Literature Theatre and Performance Studies
Women’s, Gender, and SexualityStudies
ABET ACCREDITED Biomedical Engineering Chemical Engineering Civil Engineering Computer Engineering Computer Science Electrical Engineering Environmental Engineering Mechanical Engineering
Architectural Studies Data Science
Engineering Engineering Physics Engineering Science Environmental Health Human Factors Engineering
All BFA students at SMFA at Tufts focus in interdisciplinary art. They may explore many of the following areas of study while pursuing this interdisciplinary art education. Animation Book Arts Ceramics Digital Media Drawing Fibers Film Graphic Arts Illustration Installation Jewelry Metals Painting Papermaking Performance Photography Printmaking Sculpture Sound Video Virtual Reality FIVE-YEAR COMBINED DEGREE PROGRAMS
Tufts/New England Conservatory: BA or BS and Bachelor of Music Arts & Sciences/SMFA Combined Degree: BA or BS and Bachelor of Fine Arts MINORS
Africana Studies American Public Policy Analytical Chemistry Applied Computational Science3 Arabic
Architectural Engineering3 Architectural Studies
Asian American Studies Astronomy Astrophysics Biological Anthropology Biophysical Chemistry Biotechnology Chemical Engineering2 Chemical Mechanism andStructure Chemical Physics Chemistry Chemistry of Life Child Study and Human Development Chinese
Cognitive and Brain Science Colonialism Studies Comparative Government Computational Chemistry Computer Science Cultural Anthropology Dance Economics Education Engineering Education2 Engineering Management English Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship for Social Impact
Environmental Science and Policy2 Film and Media Studies Finance Food Systems and Nutrition Foreign Policy Analysis French Geology2 Geoscience3 Geosystems German Language and CulturalStudies German Studies Greek Greek Archaeology Greek Civilization Hebrew
History of Art and Architecture Human Factors Engineering2 Italian Studies Japanese Judaic Studies Latin Latin American Studies Latinx Studies Leadership Studies Linguistics Materials and SurfaceChemistry Mathematics Medical Anthropology Medieval Studies Middle Eastern Studies Multimedia Arts Museums, Memory, and Heritage Music Music Engineering Native American and Indigenous Studies Peace and Justice Studies Philosophy Physics
Political Economy Political Science Political Thought Portuguese Religion Roman Archaeology Roman Civilization Russian Language and CulturalStudies Science, Technology, and Society
Social Justice Anthropology Sociology Spanish Studio Art Theatre and Performance Studies
Urban Studies Visual and Material Studies Women’s, Gender, and SexualityStudies
Tufts
Tufts does not discriminate in admissions, employment, or in any of its educational programs or activities on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, age, religion or religious creed, disability or handicap, sex or gender (including pregnancy, sexual harassment and other sexual misconduct including acts of sexual violence such as rape, sexual assault, stalking, sexual exploitation, sexual exploitation and coercion, relationship/intimate partner violence and domestic violence), gender identity and/or expression (including a transgender identity), sexual orientation, military or veteran status, genetic informa tion or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state or local law. Retaliation is also prohibited. Tufts will comply with state and federal laws such as M.G.L. c. 151B, Title IX, Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 503 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment and Rights Act, Executive Order 11246 and other similar laws that prohibit discrimination, all as amended. Tufts is an equal employment opportunity/af rmative action employer. More detailed Tufts policies and procedures on this topic may be found in the OEO Policies and Procedures page.
Any member of the Tufts University community has the right to raise concerns or make a complaint regarding discrimination under this policy without fear of retaliation. Any and all inquiries regarding the application of this statement and related policies may be referred to: Jill Zellmer, MSW, Executive Director of the Of ce of Equal Opportunity, Title IX and 504 Coordinator, at 617.627.3298 at 196 Boston Avenue, 4th oor, Medford, MA 02155, or at Jill.Zellmer@tufts.edu. Anonymous complaints may also be made by reporting online at: tufts-oeo.ethicspoint.com. As set forth in our policies, individuals may also le complaints with administrative agencies such as the U.S. Department of Education, Of ce for Civil Rights (“OCR”). The contact information for the local of ce of OCR is 617.289.0111 at Of ce for Civil Rights, Boston Of ce U.S. Department of Education, 8th Floor, 5 Post Of ce Square, Boston, MA 02109-3921. The email address for OCR is OCR.Boston@ed.gov.
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