Trustees of Tufts College

First, a great university is defined by its people. We need great students, great faculty, and great staff to make Tufts a great university. In the end, everything that we do is a means to attract and retain the very best people possible. Nothing else matters if we do not have great students and great faculty, and great staff to support them. So, that’s our primary goal as an institution. Second, we must have a diverse learning environment. We must embrace diversity in every possible dimension, and learn from our differences. It is one of the reasons why we ask humanists to study science and mathematics, and engineers to study poetry and history. It is one of the reasons why we seek a diverse culture in our community. Third, a great university provides the capacity to work across traditional disciplinary boundaries. I think that the great intellectual challenges that we confront as a society lie not at the heart of disciplines, but rather at the edges and the intersection of disciplines. So, if we can make it easier for our students and faculty to work across traditional boundaries, we are likely to prosper as an institution. Fourth, great universities succeed in integrating teaching and research. There are times at some institutions in which teaching and research are characterized as in tension. I do not think they are, if we do it right. Great teaching should reinforce great research, and great research should reinforce great teaching. Our students ask us questions in the classroom that we cannot answer. These questions then become the basis for future scholarship. We engage our students in the process of discovery in answering these questions, and the answers then become part of our curriculum. It is a process that reinforces itself if it is done right, and great universities do it right. Source: www.tufts.edu