Lawrence S. Bacow

Lawrence S. Bacow became the twelfth President of Tufts University on September 1, 2001. A lawyer and economist whose research focuses on environmental policy, he holds faculty appointments in five departments at Tufts: Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning; Economics; Civil and Environmental Engineering; Public Health and Family Medicine in the Medical School; and in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Since coming to Tufts, President Bacow established the Task Force on the Undergraduate Experience to explore the potential of Tufts' undergraduate academic, residential and co-curricular offerings. Numerous task force recommendations have been implemented, highlighted by the recent construction of Sophia Gordon Hall to expand on-campus housing for Tufts students. President Bacow oversaw the 10-year reaccreditation of Tufts by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. He reorganized administration in Arts, Sciences & Engineering to increase resources for faculty and appointed the Council on Graduate Education to strengthen graduate programs university wide. He launched a plan to expand the basic sciences at the School of Medicine and has worked closely with hospital leaders to strengthen the university's relationship with Tufts Medical Center.

On the Medford/Somerville campus, he has led a thoughtful master planning process to preserve the sense of place that makes the campus special while also identifying new space for teaching, research, office, student, residential and other uses. The new Perry and Marty Granoff Music Center opened in January 2007. President Bacow has strengthened relations between Tufts and its host communities, initiating activities such as Community Day on the Medford/Somerville campus and an annual symposium on active citizenship and community partnerships. He has emphasized increased collaboration among Tufts' eight schools and generated creativity and enthusiasm for interdisciplinary study. Under President Bacow's leadership, Tufts has enjoyed its four most successful years of fundraising as well as research support.

President Bacow founded The President's Marathon Challenge at Tufts in 2003, bringing together Tufts community members to run and volunteer at the Boston Marathon in support of nutrition, medical and fitness research and education. In 2008, the sixth year of the challenge, Tufts had the strongest representation at the marathon among any area university, fielding nearly 200 runners and hundreds of volunteers. President Bacow himself has run the Boston Marathon four times.

President Bacow is a director of Tufts Medical Center, the Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund, Cummings Foundation and Campus Compact. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. President Bacow is an active participant with his colleagues in the New England Small Colleges Athletic Conference, chair of the Executive Committee of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts, and a trustee of Wheaton College.

Prior to coming to Tufts, Dr. Bacow was the Chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies. A gifted teacher and scholar, he taught courses in the Departments of Urban Studies and Planning, Economics, Political Science, and in the Sloan School of Management. Dr. Bacow chaired the MIT faculty and held visiting professorships and research appointments at five universities abroad. An internationally recognized expert on non-adjudicatory approaches to the resolution of environmental disputes, he has authored four books and numerous articles, and has consulted extensively throughout the world. He is a frequent keynote speaker on higher education and environmental issues.

President Bacow received his S.B. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his J.D. from Harvard Law School and his M.P.P. and Ph.D. from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

July 2007