Dan Winslow (LA '80) wears many hats as one of the Republican contenders in the April 30 primaries for the open United States Senate seat from Massachussetts, current representative in the state legislature, and Tufts alum. After graduating magna cum laude from Tufts with a degree in political science, Winslow attended Boston College Law School. He went on to serve as a judge for the Massachusetts District Court, legal counsel to Gov. Mitt Romney and partner at Duane Morris, where he was lawyer for fellow Tufts alumnus Scott Brown (LA '81) in his 2010 Senate race.While on campus, Winslow was heavily involved in the Committee for Student Life (CSL), the Inter-Dormitory Council (IDC) and the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate. He has remained involved as a senior fellow of the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, and taught a class on judicial review. Winslow spoke with the Daily about how his Tufts experience has shaped him.
The Tufts Daily: Why did you pick Tufts initially?Dan Winslow: I picked Tufts because my grandfather, grandmother and father all went there. My father was invited to join the Korean War after his first semester freshman year, so I wanted to come back and redeem the family name.
TD: Where did you live on campus?DW: Freshman and sophomore year I was on the second floor of Hill, left-hand side as you walk in and then senior year I was an RA on the right side of the second floor. So I didn't get around much.I lived in Wren Hall in what was then called the Irish Suite," in the 540s, my junior year. There was a housing shortage so I was happy to get anywhere I could.
TD: What were some of your favorite places to be on campus?DW: Back when I was in college, the legal drinking age was 18. So I spent many quality evenings at the MacPhie Pub, which is now [Dewick-MacPhie Dining Hall]. It was there that I and others hatched a plan to have a campus center to link the uphill and downhill portions of campus as a social magnet.
TD: What became of that plan?DW: It is now your campus center. That was typical of my experience at Tufts - if you can think it, you can do it. If you can dream it, you can build it.TD: What was the process of getting the campus center project off the ground?DW: We had a referendum on [whether] the students [would] accept an increase in their Student Activity Fee to fund a mortgage to build the campus center. The referendum came back overwhelmingly that the students would be willing to dig a little deeper to improve the quality of student life at Tufts. That really got the attention of the Trustees, which basically allowed us to put the campus center on the list for approved capital projects for the university.
TD: What other issues or policies were you involved in as a part of CSL, IDC and TCU Senate?DW: It was the time that Jimmy Carter was President, a time of really bad inflation. When I first started at Tufts, it cost about $5,000 a year for tuition and by the time I left Tufts it was over $13,000 a year for tuition. The price of a college education from freshman year to senior year almost tripled. Carter had instituted what he called Voluntary Wage and Price Control. So the university had adopted all the wage freezes [for] all the professors and the staff [but] they still kept increasing the price.We had a huge protest because we said [look], you can't accept the wage freeze and not accept the price freeze ...we took over Ballou Hall. It was one of the most bitterly cold days of my life, my lips were frozen, but I gave somewhat of a speech. The NBC national news covered it, the headline was something like "Never Since the Vietnam War Have So Many College Students Gathered Together in Protest." I mean the whole university showed up
