EVER SINCE THE CENTENNIAL EDITION (the first volume) of Light on the Hill was published in 1966, the Tufts community has been waiting for our history to be brought up to date. At last Professor Russell Miller, the distinguished historian of Tufts University, has bowed to the growing demand and produced a second volume. This is an appropriate time for the new to appear. We are approaching the 135th anniversary of Tufts' founding. The last 35 years have seen many changes, including the final acceptance - in the 1955 name change from Tufts College - of the fact that Tufts is now a university, and indeed had been one for some time. I have been privileged to see in the last ten years a second change: the realization that Tufts is not just another university. This is just beginning to be felt, both by the Tufts community and by the world at large.

All universities are more alike than different, but Tufts has special, if not unique, characteristics. We are small, complex, and friendly. We work well together, in teaching, research, and service, in a way that is not attempted by larger universities. A few examples are our joint programs in international relations (Liberal Arts-Fletcher) and food and nutrition policy (Nutrition-Fletcher); our one-medicine philosophy in teaching the basic health sciences (Medicine, Dental Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, and the Sackler School); our service programs in the Center for Environmental Management (essentially all schools); the Niger project (essentially all schools, managed by Veterinary and Fletcher); and a vast number of other joint research projects, which range from a local to an international focus. Tufts has become a national university, and is rapidly becoming an international university. As many as 30 percent of the classes in some of our schools are international students, and we have strong undergraduate programs abroad, a growing number of exchange programs with universities in Europe and Asia, and many technical assistance programs on three continents. But Tufts remains a regional institution, not just because we are situated in New England, but because we work on New England's problems. The School of Veterinary Medicine is a regional school, the only one in New England. We do postgraduate dental education for all of New England, we monitor water and stream pollution for the six states, and we are committed, through the Lincoln Filene Center, to educational programs for planning boards, selectmen, and voluntary organizations throughout the region.

The volume of research at Tufts now identifies us as a major research institution. However, we do not like to think of ourselves as a "research university." Rather, we see ourselves as a teaching institution, with a faculty made up of scholars and researchers. Our research programs tend to be more "applied" than those of most universities - for example, those peer institutions (like Princeton) whose research comes primarily from the intellectual concerns of their Arts and Sciences division. The majority of Tufts' research programs have to do with solving problems, such as preventing the diseases of old age, feeding the world, maintaining world peace, and eliminating pollution. Even the Nobel Prize came to a great Tufts physicist, Professor Allan Cormack, through his interest in the problem of better imaging for medical diagnosis. Tufts scholarship and research are very much in the tradition of Louis Pasteur, who developed the new science of microbiology from his efforts to improve the manufacture of beer and wine, and who said, "I have never understood the difference between 'pure' and 'applied' research, but I hope I always know the difference between good and bad research." This is the spirit in which we approach much of our research activity. The fact that I am still president, that the "Mayer years" are not yet over - and therefore cannot be seen as a clear historical unit, but only as a series of continuing events - has put an added burden on Professor Miller. Every historian likes (reasonably enough) the perspective of some distance between his subject and the present. In spite of this, Professor Miller has been able to cover not only the Wessell and Hallowell administrations but also to distill much of what has happened within the last ten years with his customary thoroughness, gentleness, and grace.

Jean Mayer

PRESIDENT

TUFTS UNIVERSITY