Dear Colleagues,
Thank you for your feedback on the A&S Strategic Plan! We appreciate everyone who attended the listening sessions last week, and give special thanks to our focus area committee members and co-chairs for all their thoughtful work to date. In the coming months we will be compiling and processing your ideas. For those who missed the listening sessions, you can still give us your thoughts during the public comment period in late September - stay tuned!
While the full strategic plan is not final, we have begun to implement several initiatives that are included in the plan that contribute to strengthening the School of Arts and Sciences. Here is a brief update on some of our progress so far:
New Career Center Associate Dean
Alayna Hayes joined us a few weeks ago as the inaugural Associate Dean of Career Services. We are delighted for Alayna to join the Career Center team, who are already discussing their future evolution and how best to support current and future students. Focus Areas: Student Success, Future of Graduate Education.
Support for Experiential Learning
Helping our students experience meaningful internships and explore career opportunities, regardless of their personal finances, is a priority. To support this priority, we are delighted to share that the Tufts Alumni Council has set up a $500K endowed fund to financially support undergraduates with unpaid internships. Our advancement team and deans continue to fundraise towards our goal to be able to fund 100% of the applications received by the Career Center’s Summer Internship Grant Program. Focus Area: Student Success.
Matching Funds for Junior Faculty who Support PhD students
Supporting PhD students is not only a critical component of maintaining a robust research portfolio, but it is directly tied to our educational mission. However, this can be a challenge for junior faculty with more modest funding than their more established colleagues. Starting in Fall 2026, the school will provide partial matching funds for junior, tenure-track faculty (i.e., those who have been at Tufts five or less years) who support PhD stipends on their extramural grants. More details will follow. Focus Areas: Future of Graduate Education, Research and Scholarship.
Increase in Research Funds for Tenure Stream Faculty and all Professors of the Practice
The A&S Deans’ Office increased our contribution to faculty research accounts in Spring 2026 in an effort to support research portfolios across all disciplines. We are proud to share that we will increase the contributions even further in FY2026-2027 and will be reaching out to faculty on this soon. Focus Area: Research and Scholarship.
We are hiring three new staff advisors!
Our A&S staff advisor‑to‑student ratio is much higher than recommended by higher education best practice standards, so we will be adding additional staff positions in this area over the next 3-4 years in order to improve our students’ experience. This summer we will be adding three new positions, a generalist staff advisor and two specialist staff advisors who will be supporting students in Biology and Psychology, two of our largest majors. This generalist and specialist staff advisor model is common nationally and is already being successfully used in the School of Engineering. Focus Area: Student Success.
Note: Tufts has several types of advisors: a pre-major advisor (who is either a staff or faculty member) who helps students navigate courses at Tufts and choose a major; a staff advisor (an alpha-dean and/or member of the advising team) who is focused on helping students navigate the academic policies and making sure students fulfill their graduation requirements; and a faculty advisor in their major who has discipline-area expertise and provides discipline-specific advice. Once students declare their major, every student has both a staff advisor as well as a faculty advisor and that will not change. With the addition of specialist advisors, students should see no functional change but will benefit from access to staff advisors with additional bandwidth and smaller caseloads.
Evaluating the general curriculum requirements
As many of you know, our general requirements have not changed substantially in over 50 years. Initial faculty discussions throughout this academic year have been very positive. Based on responses to surveys and polls throughout the year, there is faculty interest to review our curriculum, especially the writing and distribution requirements, to ensure we are meeting the needs of our current and future students. This process will involve continuous collaboration with faculty committees (e.g., the A&S Curriculum Committee, the Educational Policy Committee, the Academic Review Board) and any changes will be subject to A&S faculty vote. This is a significant project so we have already been planning how to coordinate this goal in-line with faculty governance and workloads. We are especially grateful to the Curriculum and Education Policy Committees on their advice to date. Focus Areas: Curriculum and Co-Curriculum, Student Success.
More soon! In the meantime, best of luck with exams and enjoy the festivities of commencement!
Bárbara M. Brizuela
Dean, School of Arts and Sciences
Chair, A&S Strategic Plan 2026 Committee
Professor, Education
