Tisch College receives $15 million gift, is renamed to focus on civic life

Tufts announced today that Jonathan (A' 76) and Lizzie Tisch have donated $15 million to the university’s eponymous Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, which has been renamed the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life.

This name change was made to better reflect Tisch College’s purpose, which is to encourage civic engagement in all parts of life, according to an April 14 press release via Executive Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler.

"Lizzie and I believe in the evolution of Tisch College and wanted to help ensure that it has a bright future, offering even more to the students at Tufts for decades to come," Jonathan Tisch said in the press release.

The Tisch couple's $15 million gift will help the college in its mission of addressing what Alan D. Solomont, Pierre and Pamela Omidyar dean of Tisch College, called a “broken” democracy.

“Tisch College is a vehicle for engaging young people in thinking about what responsibility they’re going to exercise in their lives, in their communities in repairing our democratic and civic institutions,” he said. “'Civic life' suggests that no matter what you do, no matter what you study, that there is room in your life for civic life.”

According to Solomont, his recent gift will be used to grow Tisch College’s programs, including further developing its research and academic initiatives. Tisch College is home to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), which is “the leading source of authoritative research on the civic and political engagement of young Americans,” according to the program's website.

“The research is really an area of huge new interest,” Solomont said. “It's a real expansion.”

He explained that the gift will help Tisch College and CIRCLE expand its research of young voters, a voting bloc he believes could be extremely powerful so long as it engages in its civic duties.

“You could change the political landscape dramatically,” he said, referring to eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 29. “But you're not showing up to vote.”

Tisch College’s current research initiatives investigate what drives the influential youth voting bloc to the polls, and how to better engage young voters in the overall civic system, Solomont said.

"What we’re seeing here at Tufts is that young people today want to be engaged," Jonathan Tisch explained in the press release. "They want to make a difference. Hopefully they will bring the experience and knowledge from Tisch College with them as they work with others to create an even better world."

A portion of the gift will also go towards the Tisch College’s establishment of professorial endowments “in the emerging field of civic studies,” according to the press release. These endowments will help Tisch College provide opportunities in civic engagement across all seven of schools at Tufts, Solomont said.

The gift will also contribute to the expansion of Tisch College’s student programs, such as providing stipends for summer internship opportunities in Boston and Washington, D.C. and for the 1+4 Bridge Year Service Learning Program.

"We believe that higher education has a responsibility to act to help young people become agents for thoughtful advocacy, action and positive change. Jonathan and Lizzie Tisch share this belief," University President Anthony Monaco said in the press release. "Their generous support ... will advance Tufts’ position as an intellectual center for studying civic life."

The question of the administration's role in promoting active citizenship on campus was brought up during Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate's Monday night TCU Candidates Forum in Hotung Café.

“They don’t want active citizenship on our campus because its something that’s problematic to administrators,” first-year Emily Sim, who was recently re-elected to serve on Senate, said.

Solomont said that these comments from the student body demonstrate an important investment public life.

“I think the fact that people are asking the question, and that they're engaged in the answer, even if they think that the administration isn't cultivating it as much in the ways that they would like … is a good sign," he said.

Solomont explained that he hopes that this gift helps give more Tufts students an opportunity to engage with public issues.

"We want everybody who gets an education at Tufts to think about how they're going to contribute to civic life,” he said.