November 08, 2023 

Dear Student,

The following message was sent to AS&E faculty and staff today on behalf of the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, the Dean of the School of Engineering, and the Dean of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.

Dear colleagues,

Earlier this week, we received several reports regarding the posting of flyers and writing on whiteboards related to the Israel-Hamas War in classrooms and other unauthorized locations. These reports were taken seriously, prompting numerous notifications to the Office of Equal Opportunity and administrators. 

We are deeply disappointed by this situation. Our classrooms should be inclusive spaces for learning, where every student and faculty member can feel that they belong and can focus on education. And university policies allow ample spaces and opportunities for messaging while preserving classroom spaces for learning. 

Unauthorized postings and messaging within classrooms is a violation of Tufts policies, and such activities are subject to disciplinary measures. We wish to emphasize that faculty, staff, and/or students who find posters or messaging in unauthorized areas should contact the facilities department at 617-627-3496, who will remove any unauthorized posters. If you feel comfortable doing so, you may also remove posters and/or erase writing in your classroom yourself, as this would be consistent with university policy. 

In general, we do not advocate canceling class if an incident like this occurs. Students rely on the classroom as a place for learning with some degree of insulation from unsettling world events. For some of our students greatly affected by the war, focusing on academics can be a form of respite. As always, we trust our faculty to evaluate each situation and make decisions that best support both their students and themselves in the moment.

We have provided some resources below from Student Life, the Provost’s Office, and the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT) to assist you during this difficult and challenging time. And we remind everyone that safety concerns should be reported to Public Safety.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to us, your academic deans, or your chairs.

Best wishes,

James M. Glaser
Dean, School of Arts and Sciences, Tufts University
Professor, Political Science

Kyongbum Lee
Karol Family Professor
Dean, School of Engineering, Tufts University
Professor, Chemical and Biological Engineering

Scheri Fultineer
Dean, School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts
Professor of the Practice

This website has been created to provide students, faculty, and staff the tools and resources they might need over the coming weeks and months. We will continue to update this site with additional resources, tools, and information as they become available.

Student Life compiled the existing policies in one place on the AS&E Students website to make them easy for students to find. The team also added new resources such as social media guidelines for personal use.

It is important to keep in mind that for many affected students, the days, weeks and even months following a crisis may be challenging and impede students' ability to do their work. We do not have the ability to determine who might need extra support. Try to avoid making assumptions about what others may or may not believe, how they may or may not feel, or even about how they may or may not understand what happened. It is important to try to avoid imposing or even just proposing a particular way of viewing, understanding, or experiencing grief. This resource may be useful to read through as you proactively address students' distress.

Very often we do not plan to have challenging discussions in the classroom, but an intense moment arises and needs to be dealt with. Preparing for how you will respond will allow you to be more effective, remain calm, and hopefully have a better outcome than if you were not prepared. There are resources on the CELT website that can help you think ahead.

More generally, there are many instances when it is fully appropriate and desirable to plan for and facilitate challenging conversations. Deep learning often occurs in these dialogues when well designed and facilitated. Here are some links to help you think through how to design your approach to those conversations with your students.