If I had to describe why I chose to attend Tufts in one word, I would say it was for the community. I’m confident I’m not alone in this answer either; I hear the word “community” tossed around all the time when students or faculty are asked to describe Tufts. In fact, the first descriptor of the student experience at Tufts on the school’s website is the “welcoming and multidimensional community.” While I’m personally very happy with the community I’ve found here, I think that we need to redefine what the Tufts community entails.
When thinking about who the Tufts community encompasses, students, faculty and alumni would likely be the first to come to mind. However, I don’t think that our community should just be limited to those who are directly part of the Tufts institution. It is important to remember that whether we like it or not, Tufts plays a significant role in the Medford and Somerville communities, and it is thus imperative to not forget our local hosts when we discuss the Tufts community.
Ideally, Tufts should strive to have a symbiotic relationship with the communities that surround it. However, Tufts has a lot of work to do in order to achieve this. Since Tufts is classified as a nonprofit institution, we owe very little in property taxes to local governments despite the 150 acres of land that our campus takes up. Thus, Tufts should make up for this loss in revenue by providing for the community in other ways.
The first initiative Tufts should take is to design and fund more community service programs in Medford and Somerville. While there are some great opportunities available for students on a national scale, there is currently not a single mention of Medford or Somerville on Tufts’ civic engagement website. This is a clear gap that needs to be filled. In Somerville, unsheltered homelessness is on the rise due to increasing rents. Tufts should help combat this issue by investing in a local shelter, which would present volunteer opportunities for Tufts students and could help alleviate food waste from the dining halls by giving them a place to send uneaten meals that would otherwise be thrown away. There are already proven models for such a program implemented not far from us — I volunteer at a student-run shelter in Cambridge that gets food from Harvard. Tufts should follow suit for the Medford and Somerville communities.
Additionally, Tufts should be mindful of how its lack of sufficient student housing is affecting the local community. Since Tufts doesn’t have enough space to guarantee housing to juniors and seniors, most students opt to live off campus in Medford and Somerville. This allows landlords to raise rents around campus, harming both students and long-term residents. In fact, residents now have to make $65 an hour just to afford rent for a two-bedroom unit, which is higher than similar accommodations in other parts of Massachusetts. To address this, Tufts should work to provide affordable on-campus housing to students, which would ease the strain on the local housing market and stop rents from surging. The recently announced dorm on Boston Avenue is a good starting point, but since it is not slated to open until fall 2027, Tufts needs to address the problem in the short-term. One way that Tufts could help is to provide more funding to the Medford Housing Authority, which works to build more affordable housing to lower rents and address the housing supply shortage.
Finally, Tufts should contribute in its capacity as an institution of higher education and broaden academic opportunities for the local community. Unfortunately, its priorities seem to be heading in the wrong direction given the recent news that the Neighborhood Fellows Program may be at risk. This program funds fellowships for local community members to receive masters degrees and provides an excellent framework for how Tufts should help provide higher education to residents of Medford and Somerville. On top of ensuring such programs continue, Tufts could also admit more local students, similar to how publicly-funded state schools prioritize in-state applicants.
The university should use its nonprofit status to provide not only for its students but also for the communities we coexist with. However, the burden does not just fall on the administration. As a community, we need to think beyond the Tufts bubble and remember that the buildings where we sleep, eat and take classes are just a few blocks away from two towns where thousands of people live.
