Tufts Completes $1.2 Billion Fundraising Campaign

Tufts University has completed its $1.2 billion Beyond Boundaries campaign, the largest fundraising effort in the university’s 159-year history, despite the most challenging economic environment in decades.

Successful completion of the campaign comes as Tufts President Lawrence S. Bacow prepares to step down following 10 years of service.

Nearly 140,000 donors contributed $434 million for scholarships and other support to enhance the student experience, creating more than 630 new endowed and term scholarships. Donors also gave $386 million for faculty recruitment and research and $137 million for new facilities. Alumni and friends contributed more than $41 million in honor of Bacow in the last year of his presidency to support financial aid and the completion of athletics facilities started during his tenure. The remaining funds will be directed to other priorities such as new academic and research programs.

Beyond Boundaries garnered the six largest gifts in Tufts’ history, including two donations exceeding $100 million, and added $609 million to the university’s endowment.

“The goals of Beyond Boundaries were thoughtfully developed with Tufts’ academic leadership to support our core priorities as a top teaching and research university,” said Jonathan Tisch, trustee, alumnus and co-chair of the campaign. “Fifty percent of all alumni supported the campaign and these priorities. To be able to garner this kind of support, particularly in this economy, is not only a good story for Tufts, it’s a great story.”

Numbers tell only part of that story. The real success of the Tufts campaign is reflected in the experiences of the people it has positively affected throughout Tufts.

“Larry Bacow always said that a great university is comprised of great students and great faculty,” noted Tufts Board Chair and alumnus James A. Stern. “Tufts has come into its own under his leadership and during Beyond Boundaries by attracting the most talented and worthy students and recruiting prominent scholars in virtually every discipline represented across the university.”

Recruiting, Retaining Top Faculty

• Twenty-three new named professorships have helped Tufts retain world-class researchers like the School of Engineering’s Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos, the Robert and Marcy Haber Endowed Professor in Energy Sustainability. Her studies on producing clean energy through catalysis won recognition from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

• Beyond Boundaries has also enabled Tufts to attract new talent, such as neuroscientist Phil Haydon, the inaugural holder of the Annetta and Gustav Grisard Professorship in Neuroscience. Haydon was previously vice chair of the neuroscience department at the University of Pennsylvania. He and collaborator Stephen Moss came to Tufts University School of Medicine holding eight grants from the National Institutes of Health for research that could lead to new treatments for epilepsy, Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.

• The many other faculty benefitting from development and research funds range from political scientist Kelly Greenhill, who studies humanitarian crises resulting from so-called proxy wars – those fought by surrogates for larger off-screen powers – to veterinary scientist Sam Telford III, whose studies of tick-borne infections like Lyme disease are laying the groundwork for interventions to reduce human health risks.

Innovating in Financial Aid

Supporting student access and affordability was another campaign priority, and Beyond Boundaries enabled Tufts to create innovative financial aid programs. These include scholarships to allow needy undergraduates to attend summer school, elimination of loans for students from families with modest income, paid non-profit summer internships, and a first-of-a-kind university-wide loan repayment assistance program to help alumni working in public service or nonprofit jobs to repay a portion of their educational loans.

The nation’s most comprehensive loan repayment assistance program has helped Arts and Sciences alumna Sarah Driscoll to pursue a career in public service that includes grassroots efforts to clean up Chesapeake Bay. “Less college debt has enabled me to do a job I believe in, not just one that pays a lot,” said Driscoll.

Increased opportunity for students has gone hand in hand with excellence, noted Bacow. “At the same time that we have more than doubled undergraduate financial aid and enrolled 35 percent more students whose families qualify for federal Pell Grants, we have also reached new academic heights,” he said.

The combined average SAT score of Tufts undergraduates increased 111 points to 1420 in math and verbal while competitive initiatives enabled the university to make significant investments to recruit the very best students to graduate and professional degree programs.

Benefitting Local Communities & Beyond

Funds raised through Beyond Boundaries have also positively affected Tufts’ host communities and the larger world.

• Seventy-three new treatment areas added to the School of Dental Medicine facilities in Boston allow faculty to care for the nearly 20,000 patients seen at the clinics each year, many with limited or no health insurance.

• A new community music program provides music education to elementary school students in Medford and Somerville.

• At the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, New Balance Fellowships support life-changing work of doctoral students. As a fellow, Erin Hennessy, now a Friedman graduate, traveled rural America to explore the determinants of childhood obesity. Her research has contributed to obesity-prevention efforts with Save the Children in impoverished communities.

• Richard Opio, one of more than 100 beneficiaries of scholarships at The Fletcher School, lived through a suicide bombing in his native Uganda while on his Tufts summer internship. After earning his master’s in May 2011, he planned to return to Uganda with the hope of being elected to parliament.

Enhancing the Physical Plant

New construction and renovations have benefitted students, faculty and staff at all three of Tufts’ Massachusetts campuses, including

• Tufts’ “green dorm” Sophia Gordon Hall, the Perry and Marty Granoff Music Center and the Steve Tisch Sports and Fitness Center in Medford/Somerville;

• Five new floors atop the School of Dental Medicine and a new campus center and clinical skills and simulation center at the School of Medicine in Boston;

• The Agnes Varis Campus Center and Auditorium and a large animal isolation unit at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in Grafton.

Tufts publicly announced the Beyond Boundaries campaign in November 2006, with a target completion date of 2011. Beyond Boundaries raised twice as much as the previous campaign, completed in 2002. Additional information is available at http://giving.tufts.edu/.

– Information from Tufts University