Financial Aid Top Priority for University's $1.2 Billion Campaign

Newswise — Tufts University today announced the public phase of a $1.2 billion fund-raising campaign – the largest in the university’s history. The quiet phase of the campaign has already raised $615 million, which represents more than half of the total goal and exceeds the amount raised in the university’s previous capital campaign.

“Beyond Boundaries: The Campaign for Tufts,” which publicly launched Friday evening with an event at Boston’s Wang Center, will raise money for student financial aid, endowed professorships, new research facilities, and initiatives in citizenship and public service.

Co-chairing the campaign are four Tufts alumni: Pam Omidyar, cofounder of Omidyar Network; Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay and cofounder of Omidyar Network; Alan D. Solomont, chairman and chief executive officer of Solomont Bailis Ventures and Jonathan M. Tisch, chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels and co-chairman of Loews Corporation.

“Through this campaign, Tufts will dramatically strengthen its foundation of intellectual excellence, building on our enduring faith in the liberal arts, our unique constellation of schools, and our unwillingness to be constrained by traditional notions of study and research,” said Tufts President Lawrence S. Bacow. “We will open our doors wider than ever to worthy undergraduates from every background through an aggressive move toward need-blind admissions.”

“And,” he continued, “we will enhance our distinctive strengths, strengths that the world deeply needs right now: our global perspective, our leadership in the life sciences, engineering and environmental studies; and perhaps above all, our profound dedication to preparing students for lives of leadership and active citizenship in whatever sphere they find themselves.”

About 60 percent of the money raised by Beyond Boundaries is targeted toward the Tufts endowment, which stood at $1.2 billion as of June 30, 2006. Support from endowment funds fuels critical academic and research priorities not covered by tuition, such as scholarships and faculty support. Plans call for the remainder of money raised by the campaign to be split between current operating funds and enhancing facilities and equipment.

“I’ve had the privilege of seeing Tufts from a number of different perspectives—as an undergraduate, parent, trustee and teacher,” said Alan Solomont. “I have never been prouder of Tufts than I am today as we commit to pushing through the boundaries of the past and dramatically enhancing our ability to serve the world. As Larry Bacow has sometimes said, defining a future for a university is like defining a meaningful life for yourself: you aim to do the most good with the gifts you were given. Tufts is already doing a great deal of good—and we’re just getting warmed up.”

The Beyond Boundaries campaign targets five key investments areas:

Enhancing the Student Experience
$380 million goal (31 percent of total)
Recruiting and enrolling talented men and women requires that Tufts grow its financial aid resources at each and every school. A top priority for the campaign is moving toward “need-blind” admissions at the undergraduate level, so that Tufts can open its doors to promising students regardless of their ability to pay. It is also imperative that Tufts provide additional funds for graduate and professional students so that their career choices are not distorted by their debt burden.

Supporting an Outstanding Faculty
$333 million goal (28 percent of total)
Tufts is equally committed to excellence in both teaching and research, and we seek to attract and retain the world’s best teacher-scholars. This campaign will raise funds for start-up costs associated with attracting top faculty and will underwrite a broad range of other initiatives to support faculty.

Building and Enhancing Facilities
$277 million goal (24 percent of total)
At the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in Grafton and the health sciences campus in Boston, plans call for creating centers where students and faculty can come together as well as research facilities to support teams investigating infectious disease and other important health problems. On the Medford/Somerville campus, an integrated research center would encourage scholarship and collaboration across sciences and engineering.

Supporting Academic Innovation
$127 million goal (11 percent of total)
A constellation of schools gives Tufts the distinctive strength to pursue cross-disciplinary collaborations that yield exciting insights and world-changing discoveries. Campaign funds will support new and existing academic programs, including “incubating” promising initiatives.

Annual Support for Current Initiatives
$83 million goal (7 percent of total)
These funds support top priorities across the university, including financial aid, renovations to buildings, laboratories, and classrooms, athletics, and faculty development. Gifts to annual funds touch every aspect of student and faculty life.

Tufts has already raised more than $615 million or more than 50 percent percent of its total campaign goal, including the three largest gifts in its history:
• $100 million from Pierre and Pam Omidyar to establish the Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund;
• $50 million from William S. Cummings to endow the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine; and
• $40 million from Jonathan M. Tisch to endow the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service.

The university has already seen tangible evidence of the positive impact of the campaign on our undergraduate, graduate and professional programs. This September, students moved into Tufts’ newest residence and first green dorm, Sophia Gordon Hall, and a new Music Center will open early next year. Funding for new faculty chairs and academic centers is supporting teaching and research in a broad range of disciplines, from public health to philosophy to counter-terrorism. Forty-six new scholarships for students with underprivileged backgrounds are helping to increase diversity at Tufts, while new funding has also enabled students to take advantage of unpaid internships with non-profits and in the public sector.

In the six months following the official launch, the campaign will hold regional events at Tufts’ campuses and in Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Palm Beach, Fl., Washington, D.C., and London.

Tufts University, located on three Massachusetts campuses in Boston, Medford/Somerville and Grafton, and in Talloires, France, is recognized among the premier research universities in the United States. Tufts enjoys a global reputation for academic excellence and for the preparation of students as leaders in a wide range of professions. A growing number of innovative teaching and research initiatives span all Tufts campuses, and collaboration among the faculty and students in the undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs across the university's eight schools is widely encouraged.