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UPFRONT
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A Pioneering Venture
New center to focus on tissue
engineering
Imagine a patient with bone cancer who can have the diseased
bone removed and replaced with material created in a
laboratory. Or a patient whose broken leg heals in a
short time, thanks to the same technique. Research that
may soon make those advances a reality is the focus of
a new Tufts center, the only one of its kind in the country.
The Tissue Engineering Resource Center was established
this past fall with a $4 million grant from the National
Institutes of Biomedical Instrumen-tation and Bioengin-eering,
a division of the National Institutes of Health. The
center, based at the Science and Technology Center at
4 Colby Street on the Medford/Somerville campus, will
enable scientists from across the university—including
the schools of Engineering, Arts and Sciences, Medicine,
Dental Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine—to coordinate
tissue engineering efforts. Researchers from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology’s Division of Health Sciences
and Technology will also be involved in the research
work.
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| Clinton:
Rekindle the Peace Process
With a post-election buzz hinting that maybe Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton would be on the next presidential
ticket, it was no surprise that a record crowd of more
than 5,000 packed the Gantcher Center to the rafters
on November 10 to hear Clinton deliver the annual Issam
M. Fares Lecture. The talk, administered by the Fares
Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies, provided Clinton
with a broad platform on which to express her ideas and
hopes for the Middle East. “I would hope that our
president and his administration will put the Israeli-Palestinian
issue on the front burner of American foreign policy
again,” she said. Securing Iraq should also be
a top priority, Clinton remarked, adding that the U.S.
should not overlook international threats from Iran and
North Korea. “Iran resembles the place that many
in the administration believed Iraq was,” she said. “This
time, the weapons of mass destruction and the threats
they pose are very real.” Senator Clinton, who
some political pundits suggest may run for president
in 2008, later observed that the recent inclusion of
a female candidate on the ballot for president in Afghanistan “puts
Afghanistan’s women ahead of America’s women.” Her
comment was met with applause, but the senator belied
no indication that she sought to even the score.
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| Elements
of Space
Master plan identifies campus characteristics
The academic quad of the Somerville/ Medford campus
is “sacred ground” because it defines the
early history of Tufts. At the same time, there is
room for Tufts to build new facilities on the campus
well into the future. Those are among the findings
of an interim report on the university’s first
master plan in almost two decades. The report, prepared
by Boston-based William Rawn Associates (WRA), was
presented at a September 15 Arts, Sciences and Engineering
faculty meeting.
The plan is viewed as a guide for the evolution of
the campus—an evolution that will reflect academic
and research priorities of the university. Such long-term
planning, said President Lawrence S. Bacow, will produce “a
vibrant blending of landscape and architectural concepts
that support the integration of great teaching and
great research on a unified campus.”
Much of the initial work on the plan brought attention
to what defines the campus today, intertwining observations
about preservation and community with those of growth.
The architects described, for instance, three campus
spaces—the academic quad, the lawn behind Gifford
House (the president’s residence), and the residential
quad—as “sacred ground” because they
reflect the university’s early history. These
areas are not considered desirable for new construction
or improvement.
WRA also identified six “centers of gravity”—places
where people gather for specific activities and in
transit through the campus. These sites include the
Mayer Campus Center and Dewick-MacPhie Dining Hall;
the Tisch Library, including the library steps that
lead up and down the Hill; the academic quad; the residential
quad; the intersection of College and Boston Avenues,
including Memorial Steps and Curtis Hall; and the athletics
complex.
Although the master plan will not suggest specific
uses for an open parcel of land, Bacow said that the
area immediately east of Dowling Hall is being considered
as a potential site for a new integrated research laboratory
facility. The development of an integrated lab building
is among the top priorities in the “physical
planning initiatives” section of the report.
Future planning also will take into account the proposed
construction of two new structures along Talbot Avenue—the
new music building and a dormitory, Sophia Gordon Hall.
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Tufts
Partners with Mexico
Encouraging graduate
student exchange
President Lawrence S. Bacow recently signed a two-year
agreement with Mexico’s National Commission for
Science and Technology to strengthen ties between Tufts
and the Mexican government, encourage a graduate student
exchange program, and expand the university’s relationship
with Mexico’s educators, government, and businesses.
Beginning next fall, Tufts will host students from Mexico
who pursue doctoral degrees at the School of Arts and
Sciences, the Sackler School, the Engineering School,
the Fletcher School, and the Friedman School of Nutrition
Science and Policy. The commission will pay the students’ tuition
for the first two years, with Tufts supporting the remaining
years of study. The signing ceremony coincided with Tufts’ International
Overseers meeting in Mexico City.
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| Photo
by Robert Schoen |
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Cleaning
Up the Energy Act
Promoting the cause of clean energy may be a tough
job for even Madison Avenue marketing experts. But
leave it to Tufts students to come up with a smart
idea. Members of Environmental Consciousness Outreach
(ECO) made the front page of the Tufts Daily on October
20 after two freshmen—Adam Joyce, as a windmill,
and Jimmy Hughes, as a smokestack—squared off
in front of surprised students lunching at two dining
halls. The battle was ultimately “a breeze,” quipped
Joyce, who quickly triumphed over his opponent. The
event, described as “a symbolic representation
of the struggle to implement clean energy in a coal-burning
world,” is only one way ECO will continue to
put pressure on the university, and the nation at large,
to do the right thing, he added. “We’re
pleased that we got attention,” he said. “Now,
we’re going for results.”
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