October 8, 2024
Dear members of the Tufts community,
I hope the academic year is going well for you. I am writing today to share the launch of a process of grassroots listening and prioritizing to form a new plan for the future of Tufts University called Tufts Beyond 175: Looking to the future past 2027. Inspired by the upcoming 175th anniversary of the university in 2027, we are taking the opportunity to launch this now since my team, and I, believe that this is a pivotal moment when we need to all come together and decide the path for the university to take for its near future.
A path forward
Tufts, driven by its well-defined mission, has done very well for the past few decades and has stayed true to its values of being a student-centered institution, with a particular focus on civic engagement. Given our successes, there may be a temptation of letting things continue their current course. However, the instinct of maintaining the status quo, simply because we can, could prove short-sighted. As the broader fiscal and budgetary environment has become increasingly constrained, and our competition has stiffened, simply doing what we have done before limits our ambitions and our ability to execute on them.
In my inaugural address last year, I sketched five broad pillars. I picked these pillars partly because I felt that these fit Tufts broadly, and partly because they were so capacious that most plans could fit in this schema. I have listed the pillars below for your convenience:
Educating responsible leaders for tomorrow
Providing transformative experiences
Expanding our research footprint
Broadening our definition of what it means to be a student
Giving back to the community and society
There are plans either being developed or in the process of implementation at many of the schools. There are also yearly priorities that are being shaped through a process and a partnership between the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Executive Vice President. Finally, there are plans within the Office of Inclusive Excellence that permeate through the strategies at each school and unit because those speak to our values.
However, I feel that in this moment we need a focused and collective plan for the entire university if we are to succeed. This collective plan will not replace or derail the schools’ plans, or those at central, but rather it will augment and focus them.
Such a plan will need to avoid the pitfall that many such exercises suffer from: devolution into an amorphous document that lacks specificity or accountability. It may need to be developed in a way that enables development of more detailed actions. It has to be distinctive and specific to Tufts and its strengths, values, and culture. It must be focused with three to four clearly articulated action steps and goals within each of the pillars articulated above. Finally, its impact must be measurable and align with the metrics by which we measure our effectiveness and progress as an institution.
The process
I have asked Provost and Senior Vice President Caroline Genco to lead a steering committee with members from across the university whose primary function is to advise the process of data gathering and then to examine the data as it comes in and prioritize specific goals for the university leadership to consider and adopt
Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Chief of Staff Marty Ray will project manage the process that focuses on grassroots engagement of our faculty, staff, students, and alumni to gather their feedback via surveys and focus groups and start identifying those three to four strategic action items within each of the pillars. You will hear about all of these opportunities to weigh in and provide feedback very soon. To complement the internal effort, Vice President of University Communications and Marketing Mike Rodman will be leading an external public polling effort to understand the public perception of the university and its educational and research offerings within the broader nation.
To assist Tufts in this process, Tufts has partnered with the Association of American Universities (AAU), of which we are a member. Ken Goldstein, senior vice president for survey research and institutional policy at the AAU will be leading the effort on their behalf. Ken and his group will work with our internal team to design and administer the surveys and facilitate the focus groups.
You can learn more about the process through this interview with Caroline, Mike, and Marty on Tufts Now. This effort is a shared effort for the university that we love and care for so much. For Tufts to continue thriving and remaining an attractive destination for students, scholars, and faculty members in the foreseeable future, it is our collective responsibility to collaborate on a plan that leads us there. Thank you for all you do for Tufts and will continue to do to make our institution stronger as we together lead the university past its 175th anniversary in 2027.
Best regards,
Sunil