Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France. The university emphasizes public service in all of its disciplines and is well-known for internationalism and its study abroad programs. Among its schools is the United States’ oldest graduate school of international relations, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
In the 1840s, the Universalist Church wanted to open a college in New England. Boston businessman Charles Tufts gave the church a gift of 20 acres of land, valued at $20,000, on the condition it be used for establishing a college. With that, the location was decided. Tufts’ land, which he inherited, was located on one of the highest hills in the Boston area, Walnut Hill, straddling Medford and Somerville.
As local lore has it, when a relative asked Charles Tufts what he would do with his land, and more specifically with “that bleak hill over in Medford,” Tufts replied, “I will put a light on it.” In 1855, a toast to the new Tufts College was offered at a Universalist gathering in Faneuil Hall. Hosea Ballou 2nd, a Universalist clergyman and the college’s first president, remarked, “For if Tufts College is to be a source of illumination, as a beacon standing on a hill, where its light cannot be hidden, its influence will naturally work like all light; it will be diffusive.”
In Tufts’ early days, the main college building that would eventually bear Ballou’s name served as both home and classroom for seven students, who were taught by four professors. By the time of Ballou’s death in 1861, Tufts had 36 alumni, and 53 students enrolled.
Library
The Tufts University Library System contains over three million volumes. The main library, Tisch Library, holds about 2.5 million volumes, with other holdings dispersed at subject libraries including the Hirsh Health Sciences Library on the Medical campus in Boston, the Edwin Ginn Library at the Fletcher School, the Lilly Music Library in the Granoff Music Center, and Webster Library at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine on the Grafton campus.
Courses Offered
Undergraduate Programs
- Arts and Sciences
- Engineering
Graduate Programs
- Master’s Programs
Schools & Colleges
- School of Arts and Sciences
- The School of Engineering
- The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
- The School of Dental Medicine
- The School of Medicine
- The College of Special Studies Museum of Fine Arts
- The Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences
- The Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
- The Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine
- The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service
Contact Details
Tufts University
419 Boston Ave.
Tufts University
Medford, MA, 02155
Phone: 617.627.2000
Fax: 617-627-4691
Official Website: http://www.tufts.edu/
