Professor Mark Richard, a distinguished philosopher of language, accepted an offer last month to join Harvard University's faculty.
Richard, tenured in the philosophy department, will join Harvard effective next July, after having spent 25 years at Tufts.
Richard said his decision was motivated by a desire to work with doctoral students. While Tufts has a master's program in philosophy that is consistently ranked among the best in the country, the university has no doctoral program.
Present financial circumstances also mean that it is unlikely that a PhD program will be started in the near future.
"The administration is sympathetic with the fact that we should have PhD program here, but at the moment there isn't money out there," Richard said.
That, coupled with a consideration of his age, drove his decision to accept Harvard's offer.
"I'm an old guy. Iif I stay here and wait for a PhD program, even if we start one today … I would be in my mid 60s by the time we had it up and running and had grad students I could mentor and talk to," Richard said. "One thing that weighed heavily in my thinking was that I want to work with PhD students before I die."
Chair of the Department of Philosophy Nancy Bauer said that Richard's departure comes as a great loss to the department, ending what has been a mutually beneficial relationship.
"It's a really big loss for Tufts … He's been instrumental in shaping the department and establishing its reputation in the profession," Bauer said. "On the other hand, he began his career at Tufts, and the fact that he's so successful is a sign of the health of the department."
Bauer added that she understood why Richard made the decision to leave. "[He is] at the point in his professional life at which a change is often really invigorating intellectually," she said.
Richard indicated that it was not easy for him to make the decision to leave Tufts. "I'm dedicated to the university. It wasn't like this was an obvious decision for me," he said. "I'm sad to go."
Despite debates in the past about Tufts' ability to retain faculty, Richard emphasized that his decision was neither a comment on the quality of the university nor its attractiveness to professors.
"People do not appreciate how good [Tufts] is. I'm not the first person we've lost to Harvard, Princeton and universities like that, and it's going to happen. If it didn't happen, it would be a sign that something's wrong because we don't have people the Ivies want to steal," Richard said. "Occasionally, we will lose people to the best; this doesn't mean the university has a brain drain problem."
Bauer pointed out that Richard had previously been offered a job at Princeton University in 2006, which he declined largely because of significant efforts by Tufts administrators to keep him on the Hill.
Similar efforts this time around, however, were not as successful. Nonetheless, Richard maintained that there was nothing lacking in Tufts' efforts to retain him.
"In my case the university was very generous; they offered everything Harvard offered and more," he said.
He said it was Tufts' continued efforts to maintain premier faculty that will insure it against the loss of key members in the future.
"As long as the university is committed to maintaining itself as a first-rate university, we don't have to worry about losing people," he said.
Dean of Arts and Sciences Robert Sternberg echoed this sentiment. "Losing Mark is a profound loss for philosophy and for Tufts as a whole. He is among the most distinguished philosophers in the United States and the world," Sternberg told the Daily in an e-mail. "It is a tribute to the university that we have had him with us so long."
Despite this, Bauer remains certain that the philosophy department will continue to thrive. "Even though his loss is certainly important for the department, I have every confidence that the department will continue to do scholarly work and teach at the high level that has come to be expected," she said.
Tufts is currently acting under a modified hiring freeze as a result of the economic downturn. This means that a replacement at Richard's level is unlikely to be hired soon, although the department has received permission to search for an assistant professor, according to Bauer.
"We had been authorized two years ago to search for a senior colleague at the tenured level and that search has not been cancelled but is on hold," Bauer said.
Professor Sean Kelly, chair of Harvard's philosophy department, explained that Richard's hire was the culmination of a two year-long search for a new faculty member. Richard emerged as the choice candidate as Harvard looked to cement its philosophy of language program.
"We think he's a first-rate philosopher of language," Kelly told the Daily. "We really needed a top, senior philosopher of language to coalesce the whole program and attract students, and that's what we hope Mark will do."
This hire is notable in the current economic climate, especially as Harvard is limited in its hiring practices even more than Tufts, according to Bauer. Kelly expressed his gratitude that Harvard allowed this search to continue.
