Tufts Development Projects

[JumboBuc]

^ Yeah, Paul Allen just gave Tufts $10 million to sponsor Levin's work, with the potential for $20 million more. Allen announced a $100 million commitment to fund endeavors "exploring frontiers of bioscience", and he's starting it off by giving to Stanford and Tufts.

Whighlander clearly has no idea what he's talking about here. Tufts has been in serious need for new, state-of-the-art lab space for years, and it will immediately go to great use.

I don't want to turn this into a stupid local university pissing contest, but I believe you'd have a pretty hard time finding any reputable rankings that put BU and/or NEU above Tufts in any area in which they all compete. And saying that Tufts is in the same league as UMass Boston thoroughly reveals one's ignorance.

 

[whighlander]

The new science and engineering building won't be empty - I know for a fact this guy's lab is going to be located in there. He's doing something interesting
work with tissue growth and just got a huge endowment.

Tjrileymass -- I was more commenting generically about the main campus itself and the academic programs.

Today, Tufts seems to be mostly noted for things not located on the campus, such as the Vet School, Dental School, Medical School, Nutrition School, and soon the School of the MFA. Meanwhile, on the campus, only the Fletcher Schools is a "destination" with the possible exception of the remnants of the Gordon Institute.

Once back in at the beginnings of the 20th C Tufts had a substantial program involved with both electrical engineering, and the development of radio electronics -- making key contributions in both areas. Today, while there are a lot of undergraduate engineering students, there don't seem to be many well known programs or labs. This is not to say that there aren't some good faculty on campus -- I know two respected professors personally, one current and one who has recently retired -- both active in the IEEE.

In the 70's and 80's they had a chance as

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1979 was awarded jointly to Allan M. Cormack and Godfrey N. Hounsfield "for the development of computer assisted tomography"

-- Cormack was a theoretical physicist and astronomer who "invented" the math behind the CAT. Yet somehow despite the Nobel Prize -- Tufts never pursued the topic as a University project.

Had Tufts pursued the developments in CAT and related technologies -- things might be radically different -- ironically, some of this work today is happening Northeastern U at the

Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (Gordon-CenSSIS)
Director: Michael Silevitch Robert D. Black Professor, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering Joint appointment to Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
subsurface

The Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (Gordon-CenSSIS) is dedicated to revolutionizing the detection of biomedical and environmental-civil objects or conditions that are underground, underwater, or embedded within cells or inside the human body.

Ironic because the same Bernard Gordon who invented the Analog to Digital Converter, founded Analogic and built most of the equipment that scans your check baggage -- donated his Gordon Institute created to train engineering leaders and some $ to Tufts

It seems that to make the next steps upward that Tufts should pick one or a small number of areas and focus to develop a unique expertise and top "brand name" in some area of engineering or science on the main campus.

 

[whighlander]

^ Yeah, Paul Allen just gave Tufts $10 million to sponsor Levin's work, with the potential for $20 million more. Allen announced a $100 million commitment to fund endeavors "exploring frontiers of bioscience", and he's starting it off by giving to Stanford and Tufts.

Whighlander clearly has no idea what he's talking about here. Tufts has been in serious need for new, state-of-the-art lab space for years, and it will immediately go to great use.

I don't want to turn this into a stupid local university pissing contest, but I believe you'd have a pretty hard time finding any reputable rankings that put BU and/or NEU above Tufts in any area in which they all compete. And saying that Tufts is in the same league as UMass Boston thoroughly reveals one's ignorance.

Jumbo read my post about Cormak and CAT and Gordon and Northeastern

I don't actually rate Paul Allen's donation very highly since he really has no background in much of anything except being around when Gates started Microsoft

 

[dwash59]

I don't want to turn this into a stupid local university pissing contest, but I believe you'd have a pretty hard time finding any reputable rankings that put BU and/or NEU above Tufts in any area in which they all compete.

Biomedical Engineering? http://grad-schools.usnews.rankings...s/top-engineering-schools/biomedical-rankings

But if you want another part of Tufts that is considered top notch, see the Center for the Study of Drug Develpment. It has been embraced as the premiere place for training by nearly all pharma companies and venture capital firms.

 

[TomOfBoston]

boston University has trumpeted its recent membership in the association of American Universities (Top research schools). I would think Tufts should be a member too. Athe AAU does adjust for the size of a school.

 

[whighlander]

boston University has trumpeted its recent membership in the association of American Universities (Top research schools). I would think Tufts should be a member too. Athe AAU does adjust for the size of a school.

TomofBoston -- Moving up I think was the motivation of Tufts for hiring Larry Bacow from MIT [former Chancellor at MIT -- the number two non-academic slot] to be Tufts President and probably now for them getting Tony Monaco from Oxford as his successor in 2012

As pro-vice-chancellor for planning and resources at Oxford University from 2007 until his arrival at Tufts, Dr. Monaco developed and led strategic-planning initiatives for academic programs, capital improvements and budgeting and resource allocation there....

A distinguished geneticist, Dr. Monaco’s doctoral research led to a landmark discovery: the gene responsible for X-linked Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies. At Oxford, he led the Neurogenetics Group, a team of scientists investigating the genetic underpinnings of such neurodevelopmental disorders as autism, specific language impairment, and dyslexia. His research group was the first to identify a gene (FOXP2) specifically involved in human speech and language. Dr. Monaco directed Oxford University’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics from 2007-2011 and was then appointed as pro-vice-chancellor for planning and resources.

Actually -- his background seems quite impressive [....... and he was the goalie on Princeton's water polo team]. It's not every world class university or university with world class aspirations with a geneticist who is also an intercollegiate class athlete who is their president and still keeps some serious faculty appointments -- and he's young enough to have ten or so years to work on Tufts standing as President before retiring back to the faculty.

So I will rethink my statement about Tufts enigmatic or quirky behavior -- maybe they have found their niche in some part of genetic-based r&d
However, its a crowed niche with both MIT and Harvard playing in the same sand box and literally investing $Bs

However, they still have not made the AAU*1 which includes locally:
Harvard [charter member 1900], MIT [1934], Brandeis [1985] and Boston U [2012]*2

*1 the official certification of U greatness in the US and Canada
http://www.aau.edu/about/default.aspx?id=4020

AAU MEMBERSHIP PRINCIPLES

The primary purpose of AAU should be to provide a forum for the development and implementation of institutional and national policies promoting strong programs of academic research and scholarship and undergraduate, graduate, and professional education.

The members of AAU should be comprehensive universities distinguished by the disciplinary breadth and quality of their programs of graduate education and research.

The members of AAU shall approve appropriate criteria for assessing the breadth and quality of these programs, and shall apply these criteria in making judgments about potential new members of the Association and in the assessment of current members.[/quote]

-- Two primary criteria for membership is superiority in competitively awarded [i.e. NSF grants] and membership of the faculty in the National Academies


*2 -- BU hired Robert Brown to be its current President -- he had been MIT Provost [the number 2 slot with respect to academic matters]

 

[Arlington]

^ All too subtle. The simple reality is that rich research universities are engaged in a space race to create offices and labs. It looks a lot like a (student)debt-fueled bubble and a tit-for-tat escalation that nobody wins, but, like the Burj Khalifa, it sure it pretty and we suppose it'll eventually pay off in the very-long-run that Universities live for.

Also, even the most disciplined Game Theory department can't resist the siren call of fancier facilities, so even if such buildings are a universal disaster, they'll be able to hide behind the "everyone was doing it" rubric.

 

[JumboBuc]

^ All too subtle. The simple reality is that rich research universities are engaged in a space race to create offices and labs. It looks a lot like a (student)debt-fueled bubble and a tit-for-tat escalation that nobody wins, but, like the Burj Khalifa, it sure it pretty and we suppose it'll eventually pay off in the very-long-run that Universities live for.

Also, even the most disciplined Game Theory department can't resist the siren call of fancier facilities, so even if such buildings are a universal disaster, they'll be able to hide behind the "everyone was doing it" rubric.

I dunno, if we were talking about building a $150 million campus center or a $68 million "Football Performance Center" then yes, I'd definitely agree that it's a spending race with little clear benefit. But what Tufts is building here is specifically catered to the academic needs of the school's sciences and engineering departments. Tufts' current biology labs date from the 1970s and many students had better facilities in high school. There is a legitimate need for better lab space here outside of the school's desire to one-up its competition. Better lab facilities not only recruit better students and professors from other schools on a zero-sum basis, they also lead to better research outcomes on a non-zero-sum aggregate-welfare-increasing basis.

 

[whighlander]

I dunno, if we were talking about building a $150 million campus center or a $68 million "Football Performance Center" then yes, I'd definitely agree that it's a spending race with little clear benefit. But what Tufts is building here is specifically catered to the academic needs of the school's sciences and engineering departments. Tufts' current biology labs date from the 1970s and many students had better facilities in high school. There is a legitimate need for better lab space here outside of the school's desire to one-up its competition. Better lab facilities not only recruit better students and professors from other schools on a zero-sum basis, they also lead to better research outcomes on a non-zero-sum aggregate-welfare-increasing basis.

JumboBuc -- you were flying until you got into Zero-Sum bit

Perhaps on the very short term -- 1 to 2 years if you get a relatively distinguished prof to move from one U to go to another -- even here there is repurposing of other people

However, mainly if the field is active the system adjusts and like the Doritos always makes more -- there is of course a lag as the pipeline ramps-up

Rather than Zero Sum -- quality research faculty are somewhat like Dirac Particles -- you can always create some -- its just that the further you pull them from the "soup" the shorter their lifetime [Heisenberg]

 

[JumboBuc]

^ Whigh, I think we agree on this. There is some zero-sum behavior in one school making investments that only pull students and professors away from other schools, but in the long run better labs and more resources lead to better research and better outcomes on a non-zero-sum basis. That was my point...

 

[whighlander]

^ Whigh, I think we agree on this. There is some zero-sum behavior in one school making investments that only pull students and professors away from other schools, but in the long run better labs and more resources lead to better research and better outcomes on a non-zero-sum basis. That was my point...

JumboBuc -- not only qualitatively -- but quantitatively


Just look Kendall Square and one game changer -- sure there was always a fairly good Biology Department at MIT especially with viruses and so-called bacteriophages -- in 1959 MIT recruited an already well-know expert in the field Salvador Luria to Chair the Dept. 10 years later he and his collaborators won the Nobel Prize "for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses" Luria's expanding keiretsu of students and post docs begat [in some fashion] additional Nobels for David Baltimore, Susumu Tonegawa, Phillip Allen Sharp and H. Robert Horvitz

But one can argue that the most important thing that Luria did was give MIT "street cred" enough to recruit an already established superstar in another branch of the Bio universe. Har Gobind Khorana came to MIT in 1970 from the U of Wisconsin where he had already won [The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine -- 1968 to Robert W. Holley, H. Gobind Khorana, Marshall W. Nirenberg] -- at MIT he rapidly moved to the synthesis of genes from basic chemical constituents

In 1972, Dr. Khorana reported a second breakthrough: the construction of the first artificial gene, using off-the-shelf chemicals. Four years later, he announced that he had gotten an artificial gene to function in a bacterial cell.

Khorana's Biochemistry and multidisciplinary expertise added to the viruses and genetics that were already established at MIT attracted Whitehead's money.

The independently funded Whitehead Institute simultaneously both inside and outside MIT gave MIT the flexibility to lead the Human Genome Sequencing and that can in turn be said to have laid the foundation for the modern Kendall Research & Development Hub

 

[tangent]

Tufts and Brandeis have always been the quirky ones in the local U's mix

They both have rich students and rich alumni -- yet they are clearly not in the local top tier that now includes BU and NEU. However, like U Mass Boston they have potential to move up, especially if they don't try to be

What they need to do is became really good at a small to medium number of areas and use their endowments and alumni funds well

In- particular -- I would suggest that building empty buildings and hoping to fill them is not a model for success

So there are two schools in the Boston area that are really top of the top tier... Harvard and MIT are regularly at the top of the "top 10". After that you have the other "top 50" schools led by Tufts, BC, Brandeis, BU and Northeastern University in that order according to US News and World Reports. And then the rest.

So depending on the list, Tufts really is holding steady at the Boston area's third or fourth ranked University.

If you look at some international rankings BU actually gets quite a bit of a boost and if you look at how far they have come in the last twenty, thirty or forty years I think you have to look at what they have been doing right.

Yes, UMass Boston has a great opportunity, but it has always been the sense around here that Umass Boston is being purposefully held back by the powers that be so as not to cut into the business of the private Universities in and around Boston and to throw a political bone to Western Mass by keeping UMass Amherst the undisputed UMass flagship school.

So, way off-base in criticizing Tufts. The only criticism that might be warranted is that they have been relatively stable in their top 50 rankings over the decades and haven't been moving up like BU or even Northeastern University have.

Same could be said about BC or Brandeis though which have been in the top 50, but have hit the same sort of glass ceiling which would probably take some major program expansions to push through.

But it gets competitive up in the top 50. With all the top 50 and top 100 Universities making big investments. So it really is more of a credit to BU and Northeastern University that they have been able to advance relatively rapidly. No doubt using their location in Boston and Boston's brand to great advantage.

 

[TomOfBoston]

Northeastern is bursting at the seams. They currently lease half the office space in the Christian Science Center.

BU is in the midst of a $1.5 billion capital campaign. Northeastern ditto with a $1.25 Billion campaign. Not sue about Tufts. Yet Emory University recently completed a $3.5 Billion dollar campaign and USC a $5.5 billion campaign.

Harvard is liked n enormous vacuum cleaner sucking up Boston area philanthropy.

 

[JumboBuc]

The Science and Engineering Complex is looking just about finished from the exterior:

 

[Arlington]

Tufts owns 196 and 200 Boston Ave (and may own the Mystic Valley Pkwy U-Haul?).

What are they building in the triangular parcel between the three buildings? In Google Satellite View you can see that this spot has long been choked with weeds, gravel, & scrub trees (a dumping spot for snow in winter).

I'd have said that it was probably just parking, but The strange part is that they seem to have driven foundation sonotubes near-directly in the path of the future GLX. I guess best case is that it turns out to be a protective ring around cryotanks serving 196/200 which won't be a big deal to move when the GLX@MVP phase gets built?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Tufts owns 196 and 200 Boston Ave (and may own the Mystic Valley Pkwy U-Haul?).

What are they building in the triangular parcel between the three buildings? In Google Satellite View you can see that this spot has long been choked with weeds, gravel, & scrub trees (a dumping spot for snow in winter).

I'd have said that it was probably just parking, but The strange part is that they seem to have driven foundation sonotubes near-directly in the path of the future GLX. I guess best case is that it turns out to be a protective ring around cryotanks serving 196/200 which won't be a big deal to move when the GLX@MVP phase gets built?

Mostly sitting on it and buying up adjacent parcels to appreciate in value for GLX. They're judiciously adding shorter-term necessity Univ. square footage in the new-construction and gut-n'-reno buildings set back from Boston Ave. at trackside, but a full-on Master Plan for this block isn't going to get released until this FCMB re-eval process has worked through and College Ave. station is a full go. Even stuff that's shovel-ready for the shorter term is going to be kept under wraps for however many months it takes to get the ironclad thumbs-up for the campus stop and final GLX construction schedule.


Then they're obviously going to drop a ton of bricks on lobbying pressure to complete Route 16 station after they start pushing that Master Plan with fever pitch. But not quite there yet because timing for 16 requires College Ave. to be in the bag first. City of Medford knows this, and that's why they've been speaking up more assertively about 16 this year in spite of the loop the baseline project got thrown for earlier in the year. They're in on longstanding private conversations with Tufts about the future of this block.

It's unequivocally a good thing any which way 16 station does or doesn't work out. Those are extremely valuable parcels simply being on the same street as the campus stop, and the change in bus frequencies from 80/94/101 going up out of College Ave. and the 94 becoming a Davis/Red <--> College Ave./Green <--> 16/(Green?) <--> West Medford/CR super conveyor belt will make the frequencies to that block outstanding through main campus well before 16 station gets if/when added. For that reason we probably aren't going to wait more than months before seeing a complete Master Plan unveiling with some quick construction starts.

 

[Arlington]

But have they been careful enough not to build in the ROW? The new footings for a standalone structure practically back right up to the Lowell Line fence at a point where all GLX@MVP plans show the GLX tracks gently bending southward (which actually requires a small taking of the 196/200 parking lot in the long run and will be unpleasanter if Cummings Mgt has heedlessly put a cryotank where the GLX should go)

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

But have they been careful enough not to build in the ROW? The new footings for a standalone structure practically back right up to the Lowell Line fence at a point where all GLX@MVP plans show the GLX tracks gently bending southward (which actually requires a small taking of the 196/200 parking lot in the long run and will be unpleasanter if Cummings Mgt has heedlessly put a cryotank where the GLX should go)

MassDOT lists all properties potentially impacted by any of the Route 16 alignments on the last page of this brochure from 2009: http://greenlineextension.eot.state.ma.us/documents/about/Topics/GLX_PropertyImpacts_F_web.pdf

These are the two final-alternative site plans. . .

MassDOT:

Medford Green Line Neighborhood Alliance (MGLNA):

I have no idea why that Medford group was so insistent on the alt plan. It's barely any different and the entirety of the deviation is inside City of Somerville. Anyway...that was 7 years ago so it's a dated alternative needing refresh.

Anyway, the property impacts for the full universe of possibilities are itemized on there. It is incredibly unlikely that Tufts, who has played it rather smart to-date with their public-private wooing on College Ave., is going to pile up real estate on this parcel and create an expensive Master Plan only to pull an "Oops! I guess I blocked your station." with one mis-placed piling that shoots its entire investment payout full of gunshots. Much less because they didn't look at the brochure in a community meeting they themselves attended 7 years ago. There is no chance they are stumbling around deaf/blind/drunk on a bulldozer out there without knowing exactly how they plan to run point on that station build.

 

[Arlington]

^ These new footings are basically exactly at the inbound end of the "skewed" orange platform, (above, bottom).

IIRC, the reason for the skew, rather than staying parallel to the Lowell, had to do with three things:
1) Keeping the CR away from Wallking court and on alignment with its current bridge pushes everthing South
2) But pushing things south risks clipping Tuft's building
3) And having a gentle curve to eliminate flange noise and yet get to/from the North Street underpass

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

^ These new footings are basically exactly at the inbound end of the "skewed" orange platform, (above, bottom).

Then the "450 ft." is an error on that very old render, because that's a SIX-car platform on a line that's physically incapable of running greater than 4 cars due to the dimensions of the oldest Central Subway stations. 300 ft. holds a four-pack of trolleys coupler-to-coupler. 450 is too long even for heavy rail, as non-articulated Red Line cars are 5 ft. shorter than articulated LRV's and only need 425 ft. for a 6-car platform. The arch firm that did this render 7 years ago is probably confusing their rapid transit design standards with commuter rail design, as 425 is the minimum length for new full-high CR construction in constrained spaces before it's declared too-constrained by state accessibility regs to proceed.

So right then and there you need to lop at least a quarter off that orange shade on the render. The other GLX stations are being built for 3-car (225 ft. default standard) with some future-proofing slack on the approaches to re-manicure later for platform extensions if they're ever needed. And it'll be a very long time before quadruplets are used in regular service because there's tough solves to tackle first downtown with too-short Boylston and cumbersome door slotting on others. Route 16 wouldn't have any reason to go greater than 300-325 ft. in the orange shade for the whole works of: platform, bumper posts, and approach area where the tracks spread out in advance of the island.

I wouldn't read too much into that. 16's renders are two or more steps behind all other stations in design process because of the phasing: concept, not 25% design. They haven't released any corrections to the surveyors' math here in 7 years. Tufts knows exactly where the real project boundaries are because they're on that affected properties list requiring full disclosures.