A Cozy Town/Gown Rapport
April 27, 2007
On May 24, 2004 Tufts signed a landmark agreement with the towns of Medford and Somerville, promising, among many other things, $1.25 million dollars to be distributed to each town over ten years. While this payment was the central provision of the agreement, there were a number of non-financial areas in which Tufts agreed to cooperate with the cities of Medford and Somerville—most prominently in the area of undergraduate admissions. The arrangement provided for, in no unequivocal terms, “special consideration for Medford and Somerville residents in the undergraduate admissions process,” and that “at least $300,000 per year per city in need-based grant aid for Medford and Somerville.”
Due to the fact that the agreement was signed during the summer, little to no on-campus attention has been given to an agreement that has set the tone for Tufts’ town-gown relationship throughout the past three years. Since its endorsement, the May 24 agreement has determined, in part the composition of Tufts’ undergraduate students as well as characterized the administration’s increasingly proactive approach to community relations.
The Agreement
In an interview with the Observer, Lee Coffin, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, candidly defended existing admissions policies as they relate to Tufts’ surrounding communities, saying that, “It’s typical for schools to have admissions policies that give preference to their hometowns.”
A written agreement about admissions policies is exceptional, Dean Coffin noted. More often, universities rely on an informal arrangement with local government to facilitate the matriculation of local students into the university. The decision to eschew the informal arrangements that had characterized Tufts’ relationship with the two cities and agree to a written document was a highly conscious one.
“The implementation of the partnership agreement formalized policies that weren’t always visible to the community, and neighbors and residents celebrated seeing them committed to writing,” said Barbara G. Rubel, Director of Tufts’ Office of Community Relations. More specifically, the text of the agreement contained a clause that promised that Tufts would provide at least $300,000 per year, per city to meet the financial needs of local residents. Without the specifics like these in the agreement, Rubel feared that the document “would be viewed as an empty offer” by Medford and Somerville.
Dean Coffin stressed that the agreement was not only intended to give high school students a leg-up in the admissions process. The scope of the admissions program extends to all citizens of both cities, including adults engaged in Tufts’ Resumed Education for Adult Learners (R.E.A.L.), a small program that focuses on the needs of older students wishing to complete their undergraduate degree. The wording of the agreement also allows for resident applicants who attend private high schools outside of either city to apply as a local student. Coffin mentioned that the program probably affects about a dozen new students per year.
When asked if the plan to provide increased access for local students could have the effect of diluting Tufts’ academic integrity or the strength of its admitted applicant pool, Dean Coffin explained that undergraduate admissions views local residents as an “internal constituency within the applicant pool; like athletes, the children of alumni, etc.” that have a “special connection to the university.” He stressed, however, that any potential student, regardless of their connection to Tufts, has to pass the “academic test”—the first stage of the application review process that admissions officers use to weed out unqualified applicants.
Community Relations
In addition to its relevancy to standing administrative admissions policies, the framework agreed upon on May 24 has served as a guiding precedent for the future of town/gown relations for Tufts.
The university stresses that while the preferential admissions policies are consistent with the value Tufts places on community engagement and local activism, the deal is not an act of charity or a mere giveaway. “We want to say that we work with you, not for you,” Dean Coffin explained.
“They don’t want charity. They want to be partners,” suggested Director Rubel. “Tufts is not only intent on helping students become active citizens, but is committed to being an engaged institutional citizen of these communities as well,” she continued. According to Director Rubel, programs such as the recent Kid’s Day and a number of other on-campus efforts to engage the surrounding community are indicative of the positive trend that community relations has followed since 2004.
Three years after the agreement, the cities of Medford and Somerville seem to share Tufts’ optimistic view of current community relations. Anne Baker called the agreement “A pilot program for future cooperation.” Maeghan Silverberg, speaking on behalf of the Office of the Mayor of Somerville, said, “We appreciate our productive, evolving, and growing relationship with the Tufts campus community.”
Explaining the situation that Medford and Somerville residents are in, Rubel said that in the past, “Lots of young people from Medford and Somerville came to college here. Tufts was the neighborhood university, it was their school. As we have grown and increased in selectivity, it has become more difficult for anyone to gain admission, including students from Medford and Somerville. This is particularly difficult for neighbors to understand and accept.”
According to Silverberg and confirmed by the administration, the 2004 agreement also included a number of non-financial arrangements worked out between Tufts and its host cities, including a reduced charge for course audits for local residents, a waiver of rental fees for campus facilities used for local programming, support for local children in Tufts early childhood programs, coordination on “mutually beneficial” economic development opportunities, a coordinated response to neighborhood concerns and better information sharing with regards to Tufts’ master development plans.
While apparently not specifically cited in the text of the agreement, the discussion is thought to have resolved zoning issues that were brought to a front during the planning stages for the construction of Sophia-Gordon Hall.
As a non-profit institution, Tufts isn’t obliged to pay taxes to the cities in which its campuses are located. It is inevitable, however, that the university will use city services from time to time, such as the police and fire departments. As a result, it is common for an institution to initiate a payment-in-lieu-of-taxation program, or a PILOT program as it is often referred to. Tufts has chosen a flexible payment scheme to disperse the $1.25 million dollars to the city governments by allowing the cities to adjust the payment schedule throughout the next ten years to best suit their needs.
In Medford, for example, Tufts’ money was used in 2005 to assist the public school system, which was on the brink of insolvency. According to Baker, “There was an amendment in 2005 that accelerated the payment schedule and sent funds directly to the school system.” So far, the city of Somerville has chosen to accept payment at a more regular rate, equivalent to about $100,000 a year.
Beyond Medford and Somerville
Tufts’ relationship with local governments is not limited to the 2004 agreement or solely to discussions with the cities of Medford and Somerville. Just as relations with Medford and Somerville have been on the rise, Tufts’ relations with the larger surrounding community have also had a higher profile in recent years.
For years the administration has been grappling with elected officials in the city of Grafton, Massachusetts, where Tufts’ Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine is located. A controversial proposal to build a “level 3” regional bio-containment laboratory on the veterinary school premises has been met with sustained opposition from local leaders.
The Boston Globe recently reported that the plans for the lab were “edging toward reality,” thanks, in part to Tufts’ offer to pay the town of Grafton $55,000 a year for ten years to offset the burden that the construction effort may place on the town.
President Bacow confirmed this in a recent interview with the Observer, stating, “There’s been a lot of progress and we’re working very closely with the town officials in Grafton—I think it’s moving quite nicely. We’re not absolutely there yet but we’re confident that we’ll get under construction reasonably quickly.”
Further afield, the long-awaited and decades-old effort to erect “Tufts Tower” atop South Station—a massive real estate development in downtown Boston financed by Tufts—appears to be moving along. Previously the project had been mired in the bureaucracy of Boston’s complex zoning process but the political efforts of the Tufts University Development Corporation seem to have finally been met with success—optimists hope for construction to begin on the tower by as early as the end of this year.
While preferential admissions policies and agreements with local governments, informal or otherwise, aren’t the general fare of prospective student information sessions or glossy handouts, Tufts appears to have remained conscious of the challenges it faces, needing to be at once responsible to its student/alumni constituency and to its host communities.
As Dean Coffin pointed out, the university insists that its efforts are part of a larger project in place to engage the local population and ensure local communities that Tufts is, as he quipped, “Not just a college on a hill occupying real estate.”
Photos by Michael Snyder