• Timeline
• Photos 1
• Photos 2
• Floorplans
• Phase II

In July of 2007 a historic brick building that was built in the early 1900s as a nurses' dormitory at the old Grafton State Hospital, began its transformation into the Agnes Varis Campus Center. Once restored, this handsome, centrally-located structure promises to be a signature building on the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine campus. Having a central social space on campus will foster increased communication, encourage leadership and collaboration, and promote healthy lifestyle habits.

The Agnes Varis Campus Center's floor plan includes space for a fitness room, cafeteria, bookstore, student lounges and faculty offices. The ground-level floor will include a 1,000-square-foot exercise room, while the first floor will house the cafeteria. The second floor, devoted to student activity, will feature two 1,000-square-foot lounges for quiet study and social gatherings, plus space for student organizations and for a student-run bookstore. The third floor will provide offices for 13 faculty members.

We could not have achieved our goal of a campus center without the tremendously generous support of our friends. Dr. Agnes Varis, a long-time benefactor of the veterinary school and member of our Board of Overseers and the Tufts Board of Trustees, provided a $4 million naming gift for the center. Dr. Varis, founder and president of Agvar Chemicals Inc., which provides FDA-approved bulk pharmaceutical active substances for generic drug manaufacture, has provided support for many projects at Tufts and at Cummings including student stipends, an endowed professorship and the Varis lecture hall.

Dr. David McGrath, (V86), also a loyal friend of the school and current chair of our Board of Overseers and member of the Tufts Board of Trustees, and his wife Donna provided a $1.5 million gift that allowed us to move forward with the campus center project. Dr. McGrath owns multiple veterinary clinics in the Boston area and has a strong history of support for our school. The David McGrath Veterinary Teaching Laboratory on our campus bears his name.

In combination with gifts from Frank Gangi, Anonymous Donors, and the Paul and Virginia Cabot Charitable Trust, we reached our financial goal in fall 2006 for renovation of Building 16 into the Agnes Varis Campus Center. In addition, the Grafton branch of President Bacow's Boston Marathon Challenge team, Team Jumbo West, raised over $43,000 to offset the costs of exercise equipment to be located in the basement of the new center. The team could not have reached its goal without the generosity of many individuals in the Tufts community.