Light on the Hill, Volume II
Miller, Russell
1986
Foreign students have, as expected, made up only a fractional minority of the Tufts student body. Nonetheless, one of the byproducts of World War II was a measurable increase in their numbers. There were thirty students from twenty-one countries in the College of Engineering in 1951 and eighty-eight from forty-five countries in the entire student body a year later. Within five years the number of foreign students had exceeded ioo, the largest number from East Asia, and the majority enrolled in engineering. A special adviser (Elliott King Shapira of the Romance Languages Department) was appointed on a part-time basis in 1952 to assist with such matters as visas. | |
The number of foreign students increased steadily thereafter. Although the number involved was small, a scholarship program for refugee students from Hungary was provided in 1957. Growth of both foreign students and faculty was so rapid by the early 197os (300 students and faculty in 1972 and 450 students and faculty in 1974) that their overall welfare became at first one of the many miscellaneous responsibilities of the Dean of the College of Special Studies. An International Office was established on the campus and a full-time Foreign Faculty and Student Advisor was appointed in 1973 to handle not only visas but labor certification and a myriad of other administrative matters relating to the rulings of the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service. In addition, Tufts ran a series of summer orientation programs for incoming foreign students, the first in 1978. | |