Since the late 1980s, there have been several attempts to investigate the possibility of harvesting lightning energy. A single bolt of lightning carries a relatively large amount of energy (approximately 5 billion joules[1] or about the energy stored in 145 litres of petrol).  However, this energy is concentrated in a small location and is passed during an extremely short period of time (microseconds[2]); therefore, extremely high electrical power is involved.[3] 5 billion joules over 10 microseconds is equal to 5×1014 (or 500 trillion) watts. Because lightning bolts vary in voltage and current, a more average calculation would be 1×1010 (or 10 billion) watts.[4]  It has been proposed that the energy contained in lightning be used to generate hydrogen from water, to harness the energy from rapid heating of water due to lightning,[5] or to use a group of lightning arresters to harness a strike, either directly or by converting it to heat or mechanical energy,[6] or to use inductors spaced far enough away so that a safe fraction of the energy might be captured.[7]
Overview
A technology capable of harvesting lightning energy would need to be able to rapidly capture the high power involved in a lightning bolt. Several schemes have been proposed, but the ever-changing energy involved in each lightning bolt renders lightning power harvesting from ground-based rods impractical – too high, it will damage the storage, too low and it may not work. Additionally, lightning is sporadic, and therefore energy would have to be collected and stored; it is difficult to convert high-voltage electrical power to the lower-voltage power that can be stored.[5]
In the summer of 2007, an alternative energy company called Alternate Energy Holdings, Inc. (AEHI) tested a method for capturing the energy in lightning bolts. The design for the system had been purchased from an Illinois inventor named Steve LeRoy, who had reportedly been able to power a 60-watt light bulb for 20minutes using the energy captured from a small flash of artificial lightning. The method involved a tower, a means of shunting off a large portion of the incoming energy, and a capacitor to store the rest. According to Donald Gillispie, CEO of AEHI, they "couldn't make it work," although "given enough time and money, you could probably scale this thing up... it's not black magic; it's truly math and science, and it could happen."[8]
According to Martin A. Uman, co-director of the Lightning Research Laboratory at the University of Florida and a leading authority on lightning,[9] a single lightning strike, while fast and bright, contains very little energy, and dozens of lightning towers like those used in the system tested by AEHI would be needed to operate five 100-watt light bulbs for the course of a year. When interviewed by The New York Times, he stated that the energy in a thunderstorm is comparable to that of an atomic bomb, but trying to harvest the energy of lightning from the ground is "hopeless".[8]
Another major challenge when attempting to harvest energy from lightning is the impossibility of predicting when and where thunderstorms will occur. Even during a storm, it is very difficult to tell where exactly lightning will strike.[1]
Lightning strikes the most in northwestern Venezuela and the far east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.[10]  The Guinness Book of World Records lists Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo as having 28 lightning flashes each minute.[11]
Directed plasma channels
To facilitate the harvesting of lightning, a laser-induced plasma channel (LIPC) could theoretically be used to allow lightning to strike in a predictable location. A high power laser could be used to form an ionized column of gas, which would act as an atmospheric conduit for electrical discharges of lightning, which would direct the lightning to a ground station for harvesting. (Discovery News Lighting Control )
Teramobile,[12] an international project initiated jointly by a French-German collaboration of CNRS (France) and DFG (Germany), has managed to trigger electric activity in thunderclouds by ultrashort lasers. A large amount of power is necessary, 5 terawatts, over the short pulse duration. For the moment, the application of laser-channeled lightning is to use energy to divert the lightning and prevent damage instead of harvesting the lightning energy."[13]
See also
Distribution of lightning

How much electricity is in a lightning bolt?


Robert John Downey Jr. (born April 4, 1965)[2] is an American actor and singer. His career has included critical and popular success in his youth, followed by a period of substance abuse and legal difficulties, and a resurgence of commercial success in middle age. For three consecutive years from 2012 to 2015, Downey topped the Forbes list of Hollywood's highest-paid actors, making an estimated $80million in earnings between June 2014 and June 2015.[3][4]
Making his acting debut at the age of five, appearing in his father's film Pound (1970), Downey appeared in roles associated with the Brat Pack, such as the teen sci-fi comedy Weird Science (1985) and the drama Less Than Zero (1987). He starred as the title character in the 1992 film Chaplin, for which he earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor and he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. After being released in 2000 from the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison where he was incarcerated on drug charges, Downey joined the cast of the TV series Ally McBeal playing Calista Flockhart's love interest. For that he earned a Golden Globe Award. His character was terminated when Downey was fired after two drug arrests in late 2000 and early 2001. After his last stay in a court-ordered drug treatment program, Downey achieved sobriety.
Downey's career prospects improved when he featured in the black comedy crime Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), the mystery thriller Zodiac (2007), and the satirical action comedy Tropic Thunder (2008); for the latter he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Beginning in 2008, Downey began portraying the role of Marvel Comics superhero Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, appearing in several films as either the lead role, member of an ensemble cast, or in a cameo. Each of these films, with the exception of The Incredible Hulk, has grossed over $500million at the box office worldwide; four of these—The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Iron Man 3 and Captain America: Civil War—earned over $1billion, while Avengers: Infinity War earned over $2billion.
Downey has also played the title character in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes (2009), which earned him his second Golden Globe win, and its sequel (2011), both of which have earned over $500million at the box office worldwide.
As of 2018, the U.S. domestic box-office grosses of Downey's films total over US $4.9billion, with worldwide grosses surpassing $11.6billion, making Downey the third highest-grossing U.S. domestic box-office star of all time.[5]
Early life and family
Downey was born in Manhattan, New York on April 4, 1965, the younger of two children. His father, Robert Downey Sr., is an actor and filmmaker, while his mother, Elsie Ann (née Ford), was an actress who appeared in Downey Sr.'s films.[6] Downey's father is of half Lithuanian Jewish, one-quarter Hungarian Jewish, and one-quarter Irish descent,[7][8][9][10] while Downey's mother had Scottish, German, and Swiss ancestry.[11][12][13] Downey and his older sister Allyson grew up in Greenwich Village.[14]
As a child, Downey was "surrounded by drugs." His father, a drug addict, allowed Downey to use marijuana at age six, an incident which his father said he now regrets.[14] Downey later stated that drug use became an emotional bond between him and his father: "When my dad and I would do drugs together, it was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how." Eventually, Downey began spending every night abusing alcohol and "making a thousand phone calls in pursuit of drugs."[15]
During his childhood, Downey had minor roles in his father's films. He made his acting debut at the age of five, playing a sick puppy in the absurdist comedy Pound (1970), and then at seven appeared in the surrealist Greaser's Palace (1972).[12] At the age of 10, he was living in England and studied classical ballet as part of a larger curriculum.[16][17]  He attended the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York as a teenager. When his parents divorced in 1978, Downey moved to California with his father, but in 1982, he dropped out of Santa Monica High School, and moved back to New York to pursue an acting career full-time.[18]
Downey and Kiefer Sutherland, who shared the screen in the 1988 drama 1969, were roommates for three years when he first moved to Hollywood to pursue his career in acting.[19]
Career
1983–1995: Beginnings and critical acclaim
Downey began building upon theater roles, including in the short-lived off-Broadway musical American Passion at the Joyce Theater in 1983, produced by Norman Lear. In 1985, he was part of the new, younger cast hired for Saturday Night Live, but following a year of poor ratings and criticism of the new cast's comedic talents, he and most of the new crew were dropped and replaced.[18] Rolling Stone magazine named Downey the worst SNL cast member in its entire run, stating that the "Downey Fail sums up everything that makes SNL great."[20] That same year, Downey had a dramatic acting breakthrough when he played James Spader's sidekick in Tuff Turf and then a bully in John Hughes's Weird Science. He was considered for the role of Duckie in John Hughes's film Pretty in Pink (1986),[21] but his first lead role was with Molly Ringwald in The Pick-up Artist (1987). Because of these and other coming-of-age films Downey did during the 1980s, he is sometimes named as a member of the Brat Pack.[18][22]
In 1987, Downey played Julian Wells, a drug-addicted rich boy whose life rapidly spirals out of his control, in the film version of the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less Than Zero. His performance, described by Janet Maslin in The New York Times as "desperately moving",[23] was widely praised, though Downey has said that for him "the role was like the ghost of Christmas Future" since his drug habit resulted in his becoming an "exaggeration of the character" in real life.[24] Zero drove Downey into films with bigger budgets and names, such as Chances Are (1989) with Cybill Shepherd and Ryan O'Neal, Air America (1990) with Mel Gibson, and Soapdish (1991) with Sally Field, Kevin Kline, and Whoopi Goldberg.[25][26][27]
In 1992, he starred as Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin, a role for which he prepared extensively, learning how to play the violin as well as tennis left-handed. He had a personal coach in order to help him imitate Chaplin's posture, and a way of carrying himself.[28] The role garnered Downey an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor at the Academy Awards 65th ceremony, losing to Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman.[29]
In 1993, he appeared in the films Heart and Souls with Alfre Woodard and Kyra Sedgwick and Short Cuts with Matthew Modine and Julianne Moore, along with a documentary that he wrote about the 1992 presidential campaigns titled The Last Party (1993).[30][31][32] He starred in the 1994 films, Only You with Marisa Tomei, and Natural Born Killers with Woody Harrelson.[33][34] He then subsequently appeared in Restoration (1995), Richard III (1995), Two Girls and a Guy (1997),[35] as Special Agent John Royce in U.S. Marshals (1998), and in Black and White (1999).[36][37][38][39]
1996–2001: Career troubles

From 1996 through 2001, Downey was arrested numerous times on charges related to drugs including cocaine, heroin, and marijuana[40] and went through drug treatment programs unsuccessfully, explaining in 1999 to a judge: "It's like I have a shotgun in my mouth, and I've got my finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gun metal." He explained his relapses by claiming to have been addicted to drugs since the age of eight, due to the fact that his father, also an addict previously, had been giving them to him.[41]
In April 1996, Downey was arrested for possession of heroin, cocaine, and an unloaded .357 Magnum handgun while he was speeding down Sunset Boulevard. A month later, while on parole, he trespassed into a neighbor's home while under the influence of a controlled substance, and fell asleep in one of the beds.[42][43] He received three years of probation and was ordered to undergo compulsory drug testing. In 1997, he missed one of the court-ordered drug tests, and had to spend six months in the Los Angeles County jail.[44]
After Downey missed another required drug test in 1999, he was arrested once more. Despite Downey's lawyer, John Stewart Holden, assembling the same team of lawyers that successfully defended O.J. Simpson during his criminal trial for murder,[41] Downey was sentenced to a three-year prison term at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in Corcoran, California. At the time of the 1999 arrest, all of Downey's film projects had wrapped and were close to release. He had also been hired for voicing the devil on the NBC animated television series God, the Devil and Bob, but was fired when he failed to show up for rehearsals.[45][46]
After spending nearly a year in the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Downey, on condition of posting a $5,000 bail, was unexpectedly freed when a judge ruled that his collective time in incarceration facilities (spawned from the initial 1996 arrests) had qualified him for early release.[14] A week after his 2000 release, Downey joined the cast of the hit television series Ally McBeal, playing the new love interest of Calista Flockhart's title character.[47] His performance was praised and the following year he was nominated for an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series category and won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a mini-series or television film.[48][49] He also appeared as a writer and singer on Vonda Shepard's Ally McBeal: For Once in My Life album, and he sang with Sting a duet of "Every Breath You Take" in an episode of the series. Despite the apparent success, Downey claimed that his performance on the series was overrated and said, "It was my lowest point in terms of addictions. At that stage, I didn't give a fuck whether I ever acted again."[24] In January 2001, Downey was scheduled to play the role of Hamlet in a Los Angeles stage production directed by Mel Gibson.[50]
Before the end of his first season on Ally McBeal, over the Thanksgiving 2000 holiday, Downey was arrested when his room at Merv Griffin's Hotel and Givenchy Spa in Palm Springs, California was searched by the police, who were responding to an anonymous 911 call. Downey was under the influence of a controlled substance and in possession of cocaine and Valium.[51][52] Despite the fact that, if convicted, he would have faced a prison sentence of up to four years and eight months, he signed on to appear in at least eight more Ally McBeal episodes.[53]
In April 2001, while he was on parole, a Los Angeles police officer found him wandering barefooted in Culver City, just outside Los Angeles. He was arrested for suspicion of being under the influence of drugs, but was released a few hours later,[54] even though tests showed he had cocaine in his system.[55] After this last arrest, producer David E. Kelley and other Ally McBeal executives ordered last-minute rewrites and reshoots and fired Downey from the show, despite the fact that Downey's character had resuscitated Ally McBeal's ratings.[56] The Culver City arrest also cost him a role in the high-profile film America's Sweethearts,[55] and the subsequent incarceration prompted Mel Gibson to shut down his planned stage production of Hamlet as well. In July 2001, Downey pleaded no contest to the Palm Springs charges, avoiding jail time. Instead, he was sent into drug rehabilitation and received three years of probation, benefiting from the California Proposition 36, which had been passed the year before with the aim of helping nonviolent drug offenders overcome their addictions instead of sending them to jail.[14][57]
The book Conversations with Woody Allen reports that director Woody Allen wanted to cast Downey and Winona Ryder in his film Melinda and Melinda in 2005, but was unable to do so, because he could not get insurance on them, stating, "We couldn't get bonded. The completion bonding companies would not bond the picture unless we could insure them. We were heartbroken because I had worked with Winona before [on Celebrity] and thought she was perfect for this and wanted to work with her again. And I had always wanted to work with Bob Downey and always thought he was a huge talent."[58]
In a December 18, 2000 article for People magazine entitled "Bad to Worse", Downey's stepmother Rosemary told author Alex Tresnlowski, that Downey had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder "a few years ago" and added that his bipolar disorder was "the reason he has a hard time staying sober. What hasn't been tried is medication and intensive psychotherapy".[59] In the same article, Dr. Manijeh Nikakhtar, a Los Angeles psychiatrist and co-author of Addiction or Self-Medication: The Truth (ISBN978-1883819576), says she received a letter from Downey in 1999, during his time at Corcoran II, asking for advice on his condition. She discovered that "no one had done a complete [psychiatric] evaluation [on him] ... I asked him flat out if he thought he was bipolar, and he said, 'Oh yeah. There are times I spend a lot of money and I'm hyperactive, and there are other times I'm down.'"[59] In an article for the March 2007 issue of Esquire, Downey told author Scott Raab that he wanted to address "this whole thing about the bipolar" after receiving a phone call from "the Bipolar Association" asking him about being bipolar. When Downey denied he had ever said he was bipolar, the caller quoted the People article, to which Downey replied, "'No! Dr. Malibusian said [I said I was bipolar] ... ', and they go, 'Well, it's been written, so we're going to quote it.'"[60] Downey flatly denied being "depressed or manic" and that previous attempts to diagnose him with any kind of psychiatric or mood disorder have always been skewed because "the guy I was seeing didn't know I was smokin' crack in his bathroom. You can't make a diagnosis until somebody's sober."[60]
2001–2007: Career comeback

After five years of substance abuse, arrests, rehab, and relapse, Downey was ready to work toward a full recovery from drugs, and a return to his career. In discussing his failed attempts to control his own addictive behavior in the past, Downey told Oprah Winfrey in November 2004 that "when someone says, 'I really wonder if maybe I should go to rehab?' Well, uh, you're a wreck, you just lost your job, and your wife left you. Uh, you might want to give it a shot."[61] He added that after his last arrest in April 2001, when he knew he would likely be facing another stint in prison or another form of incarceration such as court-ordered rehab, "I said, 'You know what? I don't think I can continue doing this.' And I reached out for help, and I ran with it. You can reach out for help in kind of a half-assed way and you'll get it and you won't take advantage of it. It's not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems ... what's hard is to decide to do it."[61]
Downey got his first post-rehabilitation acting job in August 2001, lip-syncing in the video for Elton John's single "I Want Love".[62] Video director Sam Taylor-Wood shot 16 takes of the video and used the last one because, according to John, Downey looked completely relaxed and "The way he underplays it is fantastic".[63]
Downey was able to return to the big screen after Mel Gibson, who had been a close friend to Downey since both had co-starred in Air America, paid Downey's insurance bond for the 2003 film The Singing Detective (directed by his Back To School co-star Keith Gordon).[64] Gibson's gamble paved the way for Downey's comeback and Downey returned to mainstream films in the mid-2000s with Gothika, for which producer Joel Silver withheld 40% of his salary until after production wrapped as insurance against his addictive behavior. Similar clauses have become standard in his contracts since.[65] Silver, who was getting closer to Downey as he dated his assistant Susan Levin, also got the actor the leading role in the comedy thriller Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the directorial debut of screenwriter Shane Black.[66]
After Gothika, Downey was cast in a number of leading and supporting roles, including well-received work in a number of semi-independent films: A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Good Night, and Good Luck, Richard Linklater's dystopian, rotoscoped A Scanner Darkly (in which Downey plays the role of a drug addict), and Steven Shainberg's fictional biographical film of Diane Arbus, Fur, where Downey's character represented the two biggest influences on Arbus's professional life, Lisette Model and Marvin Israel.[67] Downey also received great notice for his roles in more mainstream fare such as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Disney's poorly received The Shaggy Dog.[68]
On November 23, 2004, Downey released his debut musical album, The Futurist, on Sony Classical, for which he designed the cover art and designed the track listing label on the CD with his son Indio.[69] The album received mixed reviews,[70][71] but Downey stated in 2006 that he probably will not do another album, as he felt that the energy he put into doing the album was not compensated.[72]
In 2006, Downey returned to television when he guest-starred on Family Guy in the episode "The Fat Guy Strangler". Downey had previously telephoned the show's production staff, and asked if he could produce or assist in an episode creation, as his son Indio is a fan of the show. The producers of the show accepted the offer and created the character of Patrick Pewterschmidt, Lois Griffin's long lost, mentally disturbed brother, for Downey.[73]
Downey signed on with publishers HarperCollins to write a memoir, which in 2006, was already being billed as a "candid look at the highs and lows of his life and career". In 2008, however, Downey returned his advance to the publishers, and canceled the book without further comment.[74]
In 2007, Downey appeared in David Fincher's mystery thriller Zodiac, which was based on a true story. He played the role of San Francisco Chronicle journalist Paul Avery, who was reporting the Zodiac Killer case.[75]
2008–present: Blockbuster films and further success

With all of the critical success Downey had experienced throughout his career, he had not appeared in a "blockbuster" film. That changed in 2008, when Downey starred in two critically and commercially successful films, Iron Man and Tropic Thunder. In the article Ben Stiller wrote for Downey's entry in the 2008 edition of The Time 100, he offered an observation on Downey's commercially successful summer at the box office:
Yes, Downey is Iron Man, but he really is Actor Man... In the realm where box office is irrelevant and talent is king, the realm that actually means something, he has always ruled, and finally this summer he gets to have his cake and let us eat him up all the way to the multiplex, where his mastery is in full effect.—Ben Stiller, The 2008 Time 100, entry No. 60, "Robert Downey Jr."[76]

In 2007, Downey was cast as the title character in the film Iron Man,[77] with director Jon Favreau explaining the choice by stating: "Downey wasn't the most obvious choice, but he understood what makes the character tick. He found a lot of his own life experience in 'Tony Stark'."[78] Favreau insisted on having Downey as he repeatedly claimed that Downey would be to Iron Man what Johnny Depp is to the Pirates of the Caribbean series: a lead actor who could both elevate the quality of the film and increase the public's interest in it.[42][79][80][81] For the role Downey had to gain more than 20 pounds of muscle in five months to look like he "had the power to forge iron".[82]
Iron Man was globally released between April 30 and May 3, 2008, grossing over $585million worldwide[83] and receiving rave reviews which cited Downey's performance as a highlight of the film.[84][85][86] By October 2008, Downey had agreed to appear as Iron Man in two Iron Man sequels, as part of the Iron Man franchise, as well as The Avengers, featuring the superhero team that Stark joins, based on Marvel's comic book series The Avengers.[87] He first reprised the role in a small appearance as Iron Man's alter ego Tony Stark in the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk, as a part of Marvel Studios' depicting the same Marvel Universe on film by providing continuity among the movies.[88]
After Iron Man, Downey appeared alongside Ben Stiller and Jack Black in the Stiller-directed Tropic Thunder. The three actors play a Hollywood archetype—with Downey playing self-absorbed multi-Oscar-winning Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus—as they star in an extremely expensive Vietnam-era film called Tropic Thunder. Lazarus undergoes a "controversial skin pigmentation procedure" in order to take on the role of African-American platoon sergeant Lincoln Osiris, which required Downey to wear dark makeup and a wig. Both Stiller and Downey feared Downey's portrayal of the character could become controversial:
Stiller says that he and Downey always stayed focused on the fact that they were skewering insufferable actors, not African Americans. "I was trying to push it as far as you can within reality", Stiller explains. "I had no idea how people would respond to it". Stiller screened a rough cut of the film [in March 2008] and it scored high with African Americans. He was relieved at the reaction. "It seems people really embrace it", he said.[89]

When asked by Harry Smith on CBS's The Early Show who his model was for Lazarus, Downey laughed before responding, "Sadly, my sorry-ass self".[90]
Released in the United States on August 13, 2008, Tropic Thunder received good reviews with 83% of reviews positive and an average normalized score of 71, according to the review aggregator websites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively.[91][92] It earned US$26million in its North American opening weekend and retained the number one position for its first three weekends of release. The film grossed $180million in theaters before its release on home video on November 18, 2008. Downey was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Lazarus.[93]

Opening in late April 2009 was a film Downey finished in mid-2008, The Soloist. The film was delayed from a November 2008 release by Paramount Pictures due to the studio's tight end-of-year release schedule.[94] Critics who had seen the film in 2008 were mentioning it as a possible Academy Award candidate.[95] Downey picked up an Academy Award nomination for the 2008 release year for his role in Tropic Thunder.[96]
The first role Downey accepted after Iron Man was the title character in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. Warner Bros. released it on December 25, 2009.[97] The film set several box office records in the United States for a Christmas Day release, beating the previous record holder, 2008's Marley & Me, by nearly $10M, and finished second to Avatar in a record-setting Christmas weekend box office. Sherlock Holmes ended up being the 8th highest-grossing film of 2009.[98][99] When Downey won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for his role as Sherlock Holmes, he noted in his acceptance speech that he had prepared no remarks because "Susan Downey (his wife and Sherlock Holmes producer) told me that Matt Damon (nominated for his role in The Informant!) was going to win so don't bother preparing a speech".[100]
Downey returned as Tony Stark in the first of two planned sequels to Iron Man, Iron Man 2, which released in May 2010. Iron Man 2 grossed over $623M worldwide, becoming the 7th highest-grossing film of 2010.[101]
Downey's other commercial film release of 2010 was the comedy road film, Due Date. The movie, co-starring Zach Galifianakis, was released in November 2010[102] and grossed over $211M worldwide, making it the 36th highest-grossing movie of 2010.[103] Downey's sole 2011 film credit was the sequel to the 2009 version of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which opened worldwide on December 16, 2011.[104]
In 2012, Downey reprised the role of Tony Stark in The Avengers. The film received positive reviews[105] and was highly successful at the box office, becoming the third highest-grossing film of all time both in the United States and worldwide.[106] His film, the David Dobkin-directed dramedy The Judge,[107] a project co-produced by his production company Team Downey, was the opening film at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014.[108] Downey played Tony Stark again in Iron Man 3 (2013),[109] Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017),[110] and Avengers: Infinity War (2018).
Upcoming projects
Downey is scheduled to star in an upcoming Pinocchio film[111] and The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle. He will reprise his role as Iron Man in Avengers: Endgame, set for release on April 26, 2019.[112] He will also reprise his role as Holmes in a third film, scheduled for release on December 25, 2020.[113]
Other ventures
Music
Downey has sung on several soundtracks for his films, including for Chaplin, Too Much Sun, Two Girls and a Guy, Friends and Lovers, The Singing Detective, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. In 2001, he appeared in the music video for Elton John's song, "I Want Love."  He released a CD in 2004 called The Futurist, and while promoting his film Tropic Thunder, he and his co-stars Ben Stiller and Jack Black were back-up singers "The Pips" to Gladys Knight singing "Midnight Train to Georgia".[114]
Downey's most commercially successful recording venture to date (combining sales and radio airplay) has been his remake of the 1973 Joni Mitchell Christmas song "River", which was included on the Ally McBeal tie-in album Ally McBeal: A Very Ally Christmas, released in 2000; Downey's character Larry Paul performs the song in the Ally McBeal episode "Tis the Season".[115]
Production company
On June 14, 2010, Downey and his wife Susan opened their own production company called Team Downey. Their first project was The Judge.[116]
Personal life
Relationships and family
Downey started dating actress Sarah Jessica Parker after meeting her on the set of Firstborn. The couple later separated due to his drug addiction.[117]
He married actress/singer Deborah Falconer on May 29, 1992, after a 42-day courtship.[118] Their son, Indio Falconer Downey, was born in September 1993.[119] The strain on their marriage from Downey's repeated trips to rehab and jail finally reached a breaking point; in 2001, in the midst of Downey's last arrest and sentencing to an extended stay in rehab, Falconer left Downey and took their son with her.[118] Downey and Falconer finalized their divorce on April 26, 2004.

In 2003, Downey met producer Susan Levin, an Executive Vice President of Production at Joel Silver's film company, Silver Pictures on the set of Gothika.[64] Downey and Susan quietly struck up a romance during production, though Susan turned down his romantic advances twice.[120] Despite Susan's worries that the romance would not last after the completion of shooting because "he's an actor; I have a real job",[120] the couple's relationship continued after production wrapped on Gothika, and Downey proposed to Susan on the night before her thirtieth birthday.[120] The couple were married in August 2005, in a Jewish ceremony at Amagansett, New York.[121][122] A tattoo on one of his biceps reads "Suzie Q" in tribute to her.[123] Their first child, a son, was born in February 2012,[124] their second child, a daughter, was born in November 2014.[125][126][127]
Downey has been a close friend of Mel Gibson since they starred in Air America. Downey defended Gibson during the controversy surrounding The Passion of the Christ, and said "nobody's perfect" in reference to Gibson's DUI.[128] Gibson said of Downey: "He was one of the first people to call and offer the hand of friendship. He just said, 'Hey, welcome to the club. Let's go see what we can do to work on ourselves.'"[129] In October 2011, Downey was being honored at the 25th American Cinematheque Awards; Downey chose Gibson to present him with his award for his life's work, and used his air time to say a few kind words about Gibson and explain why he chose him to present the award.[130]
Addiction and sobriety
Downey maintains that he has been drug-free since July 2003,[131] and has credited his wife with helping him overcome his drug and alcohol habits, along with his family, therapy, meditation, twelve-step recovery programs, yoga, and the practice of Wing Chun kung fu,[24] the martial art he learned from Eric Oram, who is also a fight consultant in several of Downey's movies.[132][133] Oram was Downey's personal fight coordinator in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War.[134] In December 2015, Downey received a full and unconditional pardon from Governor of California Jerry Brown for his prior drug convictions.[135][136] Oram wrote a letter in support of Downey's pardon to Governor Brown.[137]
Religious beliefs
Downey has described his religious beliefs as "Jewish-Buddhist",[138] and he is reported to have consulted astrologers.[139] In the past, Downey has been interested in Christianity and the Hare Krishna movement.[138]
Political views
In a 2008 interview, Downey stated that his time in prison changed his political point of view somewhat, saying, "I have a really interesting political point of view, and it's not always something I say too loud at dinner tables here, but you can't go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal. You can't. I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone else, but it was very, very, very educational for me and has informed my proclivities and politics ever since."[140] However, when asked about the quote in a 2015 interview to promote Avengers: Age of Ultron, he denied that his previous statement reflected any longstanding beliefs on his part, and stated, "I wouldn't say that I'm a Republican or a liberal or a Democrat."[141]
Downey serves on the board of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition.[142]
In 2016, Downey appeared in an anti-Trump commercial with other celebrities encouraging people to register to vote in the 2016 election.[143]
Filmography and awards

Discography
Studio album
The Futurist (2004)
Soundtrack appearances

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 at Los Angeles Times Magazine
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The Philadelphia 76ers, often referred to as the "Sixers", are an American professional basketball team based in Philadelphia. The Sixers play in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA). In sixty-six NBA seasons, the franchise has played in the NBA Finals nine times and won three NBA championships.[1] The Sixers have the third-highest victory total and third most playoff appearances in NBA history.[2] Since 1996, the Sixers have played home games at Wells Fargo Center.
In 1937, owner Daniel Biasone founded the franchise as the Syracuse Nationals, a member of the National Basketball League (NBL).[3] The Nationals qualified for the playoffs three times then joined the NBA in 1949, one of seven NBL teams to merge with the rival Basketball Association of America (BAA). The Nationals qualified for the playoffs in every season played in Syracuse, advancing to three Finals and defeating the Pistons in the 1955 Finals.[4] For the 1963–64 season, the year following the departure of the Philadelphia Warriors for San Francisco, the Syracuse Nationals relocated to Philadelphia as the 76ers.
The franchise has played fifty-three seasons as the Philadelphia 76ers, with thirty-three playoff appearances and two NBA championships.[1] The Sixers acquired Philadelphia-native Wilt Chamberlain in 1964 from the Warriors and defeated Chamberlain's former team in the 1967 Finals, but suffered a sharp fall from grace due to the loss of Chamberlain to retirement and Billy Cunningham to the ABA:[5] in 1972–73 the team won only nine games, the fewest in an 82-game NBA season. Under coaches Gene Shue and Cunningham, and the on-court leadership of forward Julius Erving, the 76ers returned as a power quite rapidly, achieving winning records in all but one season from 1975–76 to 1990–91. The Sixers won their last title in 1983 against the Los Angeles Lakers, sweeping them in four games.
During the 1990s, the 76ers declined to an 18–64 record in 1995–96 before popular high-scoring guard Allen Iverson led the team back up the table. In 2000–01 the Iverson-led 76ers won fifty-six games and defeated the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference Finals to reach the 2001 Finals but lost to the Lakers four games to one in the best-of-seven series. The 76ers were a middle-of-the-road team on-court during the following dozen seasons, but by the early 2010s financial problems led incoming general manager Sam Hinkie to clean out any expensive players in order to save money and gain draft choices for the future.[6] Lacking on-court talent, the 76ers set many records for ineptitude in the following three seasons, becoming the second NBA team after the 1995–96 to 1998–99 Grizzlies to suffer three consecutive seasons winning fewer than twenty games. In 2015–16 by going 10–72 the 76ers suffered the ignominy of having suffered the two all-time worst 82-game NBA season winning percentages.[note 1]
Seasons

*Current Season
**Not including current season
Notes

Sources
, nba.com. NBA Media Ventures, LLC. Retrieved 2009-09-06.
, basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved 2009-09-06.
, basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved 2009-09-06.


Part of a series onClassicism
Classical antiquity
Greco-Roman world
Age of Enlightenment
Neoclassicism
Economics
Music
Physics
20th-century neoclassicism
Between World War I and II
Ballet
Economics
Music
Philosophyvt
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint and compression we are simply objecting to the classicism of classic art. A violent emphasis or a sudden acceleration of rhythmic movement would have destroyed those qualities of balance and completeness through which it retained until the present century its position of authority in the restricted repertoire of visual images."[1] Classicism, as Clark noted, implies a canon of widely accepted ideal forms, whether in the Western canon that he was examining in The Nude (1956), or the literary Chinese classics or Chinese art, where the revival of classic styles is also a recurring feature.
Classicism is a force which is often present in post-medieval European and European influenced traditions; however, some periods felt themselves more connected to the classical ideals than others, particularly the Age of Enlightenment,[2] when Neoclassicism was an important movement in the visual arts.
General term

Classicism is a specific genre of philosophy, expressing itself in literature, architecture, art, and music, which has Ancient Greek and Roman sources and an emphasis on society. It was particularly expressed in the Neoclassicism[3] of the Age of Enlightenment.
Classicism is a recurrent tendency in the Late Antique period, and had a major revival in Carolingian and Ottonian art. There was another, more durable revival in the Italian renaissance when the fall of Byzantium and rising trade with the Islamic cultures brought a flood of knowledge about, and from, the antiquity of Europe. Until that time, the identification with antiquity had been seen as a continuous history of Christendom from the conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine I. Renaissance classicism introduced a host of elements into European culture, including the application of mathematics and empiricism into art, humanism, literary and depictive realism, and formalism. Importantly it also introduced Polytheism, or "paganism", and the juxtaposition of ancient and modern.
The classicism of the Renaissance led to, and gave way to, a different sense of what was "classical" in the 16th and 17th centuries. In this period, classicism took on more overtly structural overtones of orderliness, predictability, the use of geometry and grids, the importance of rigorous discipline and pedagogy, as well as the formation of schools of art and music. The court of Louis XIV was seen as the center of this form of classicism, with its references to the gods of Olympus as a symbolic prop for absolutism, its adherence to axiomatic and deductive reasoning, and its love of order and predictability.
This period sought the revival of classical art forms, including Greek drama and music. Opera, in its modern European form, had its roots in attempts to recreate the combination of singing and dancing with theatre thought to be the Greek norm. Examples of this appeal to classicism included Dante, Petrarch, and Shakespeare in poetry and theatre. Tudor drama, in particular, modeled itself after classical ideals and divided works into Tragedy [4] and Comedy. Studying Ancient Greek became regarded as essential for a well-rounded education in the liberal arts.
The Renaissance also explicitly returned to architectural models and techniques associated with Greek and Roman antiquity, including the golden rectangle as a key proportion for buildings, the classical orders of columns, as well as a host of ornament and detail associated with Greek and Roman architecture. They also began reviving plastic arts such as bronze casting for sculpture, and used the classical naturalism as the foundation of drawing, painting and sculpture.
The Age of Enlightenment identified itself with a vision of antiquity which, while continuous with the classicism of the previous century, was shaken by the physics of Sir Isaac Newton, the improvements in machinery and measurement, and a sense of liberation which they saw as being present in the Greek civilization, particularly in its struggles against the Persian Empire. The ornate, organic, and complexly integrated forms of the baroque were to give way to a series of movements that regarded themselves expressly as "classical" or "neo-classical", or would rapidly be labelled as such. For example, the painting of Jacques-Louis David was seen as an attempt to return to formal balance, clarity, manliness, and vigor in art.
The 19th century saw the classical age as being the precursor of academicism, including such movements as uniformitarianism in the sciences, and the creation of rigorous categories in artistic fields. Various movements of the romantic period saw themselves as classical revolts against a prevailing trend of emotionalism and irregularity, for example the Pre-Raphaelites.[5] By this point, classicism was old enough that previous classical movements received revivals; for example, the Renaissance was seen as a means to combine the organic medieval with the orderly classical. The 19th century continued or extended many classical programs in the sciences, most notably the Newtonian program to account for the movement of energy between bodies by means of exchange of mechanical and thermal energy.
The 20th century saw a number of changes in the arts and sciences. Classicism was used both by those who rejected, or saw as temporary, transfigurations in the political, scientific, and social world and by those who embraced the changes as a means to overthrow the perceived weight of the 19th century. Thus, both pre-20th century disciplines were labelled "classical" and modern movements in art which saw themselves as aligned with light, space, sparseness of texture, and formal coherence.
In the present day philosophy classicism is used as a term particularly in relation to Apollonian over Dionysian impulses in society and art; that is a preference for rationality, or at least rationally guided catharsis, over emotionalism.
In the theatre

Classicism in the theatre was developed by 17th century French playwrights from what they judged to be the rules of Greek classical theatre, including the "Classical unities" of time, place and action, found in the Poetics of Aristotle.
Unity of time referred to the need for the entire action of the play to take place in a fictional 24-hour period
Unity of place meant that the action should unfold in a single location
Unity of action meant that the play should be constructed around a single 'plot-line', such as a tragic love affair or a conflict between honour and duty.
Examples of classicist playwrights are Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine and Molière.  In the period of Romanticism, Shakespeare, who conformed to none of the classical rules, became the focus of French argument over them, in which the Romantics eventually triumphed; Victor Hugo was among the first French playwrights to break these conventions.
The influence of these French rules on playwrights in other nations is debatable.  In the English theatre, Restoration playwrights such as William Wycherly and William Congreve would have been familiar with them.  William Shakespeare and his contemporaries did not follow this Classicist philosophy, in particular since they were not French and also because they wrote several decades prior to their establishment.  Those of Shakespeare's plays that seem to display the unities, such as The Tempest,[6] probably indicate a familiarity with actual models from classical antiquity.
In architecture

Classicism in architecture developed during the Italian Renaissance, notably in the writings and designs of Leon Battista Alberti and the work of Filippo Brunelleschi. It places emphasis on symmetry, proportion, geometry and the regularity of parts as they are demonstrated in the  architecture of Classical antiquity and in particular, the architecture of Ancient Rome, of which many examples remained.
Orderly arrangements of columns, pilasters and lintels, as well as the use of semicircular arches, hemispherical domes, niches and aedicules replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval buildings. This style quickly spread to other Italian cities and then to France, Germany, England, Russia and elsewhere.
In the 16th century, Sebastiano Serlio helped codify the classical orders and Palladio's legacy evolved into the long tradition of Palladian architecture. Building off of these influences, the 17th-century architects Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren firmly established classicism in England.
For the development of classicism from the mid-18th-century onwards, see Neoclassical architecture.
In the fine arts
For Greek art of the 5th century B.C.E., see Classical art in ancient Greece and the Severe style
Italian Renaissance painting[7] and sculpture are marked by their renewal of classical forms, motifs and subjects. In the 15th century Leon Battista Alberti was important in theorizing many of the ideas for painting that came to a fully realised product with Raphael's School of Athens during the High Renaissance. The themes continued largely unbroken into the 17th century, when artists such as Nicolas Poussin and Charles Le Brun represented of the more rigid classicism. Like Italian classicizing ideas in the 15th and 16th centuries, it spread through Europe in the mid to late 17th century.
Later classicism in painting and sculpture from the mid-18th and 19th centuries is generally referred to as Neoclassicism.
Political philosophy

See also
Classical tradition
Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns
Weimar Classicism

Further reading
 Essays by various authors on topics related to historical periods, places, and themes. Limited preview online.

Is the Renaissance considered classicalism?


Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. A charter member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), Tufts College was founded in 1852 by Christian universalists who worked for years to open a nonsectarian institution of higher learning.[6] For more than a century, Tufts was a small New England liberal arts college until its transformation into a larger research university in the 1970s.[7] The university emphasizes active citizenship and public service in all of its disciplines,[8] and is known for its internationalism and study abroad programs.[9] From a nationwide perspective, U.S. News & World Report categorizes Tufts as "most selective," which is the highest degree of selectivity the magazine offers.[10] In addition, Tufts is considered one of the Hidden Ivies of the Northeastern United States.
Tufts is organized into ten schools,[11] including two undergraduate degree programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in the Boston metropolitan area and the French Alps. Among its schools is the United States' oldest graduate school of international relations, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (SMFA at Tufts) offers undergraduate and graduate art programs and is affiliated with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.[12] The School of Engineering has an entrepreneurial focus with the Gordon Institute and maintains close connections with the original college.[13] The university has a campus in Downtown Boston that houses the medical, dental, and nutrition schools, affiliated with several medical centers in the area.[14] The university offers joint undergraduate degree programs with the New England Conservatory,[15] and the Sciences Po Paris[16] with additional programs with the University of Paris, University of Oxford and constituents of the University of London.[17] Several of its programs have affiliations with the nearby institutions of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[18]
Alumni and affiliates include Nobel laureates, billionaires, heads of state, governors, senators, representatives, Emmy and Academy Award winners, and National Academy members.[19] Tufts has also graduated several Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright, Truman, Goldwater scholars.[20][21][22][23] Other notable alumni include numerous CEOs and founders of Fortune 500 companies, high ranking U.S. diplomats, and Pulitzer Prize winners.
History

19th century

In the 1840s, the Universalist Church wanted to open a college in New England, and Charles Tufts donated 20 acres to the church in 1852 to help them achieve this goal. Charles Tufts had inherited the land, a barren hill which was one of the highest points in the Boston area, called Walnut Hill, and when asked by a family member what he intended to do with the land, he said "I will put a light on it". His 20-acre donation (then valued at $20,000) is still at the heart of Tufts' now-150 acre campus, straddling Somerville and Medford. It was also in 1852 that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts chartered Tufts College, noting the college should promote "virtue and piety and learning in such of the languages and liberal and useful arts as shall be recommended". During his tenure, Ballou spent a year travelling and studying in the United Kingdom. The methods of instruction which he initiated were based on the tutorials that were conducted in the University of Oxford and the University of Edinburgh. Now more than 160 years old, Tufts is the third-oldest college in the Boston area.[24]
Having been one of the biggest influences in the establishment of the College, Hosea Ballou II became the first president in 1853, and College Hall, the first building on campus, was completed the following year. That building now bears Ballou's name.[25] The campus opened in August 1854. President Ballou died in 1861 and was succeeded by Alonzo Ames Miner. Though not a college graduate, his presidency was marked by several advances. These include the establishment of preparatory schools for Tufts which include Goddard Seminary, Westbrook Seminary, and Dean Academy. During the Civil War the college actively supported the Union cause. The mansion of Major George L. Stearns which stood on part of the campus was a station on the Underground Railroad. In addition to having the largest classes spring up, 63 graduates served in the Union army. The first course of a three-year program leading to a degree in civil engineering was established in 1865, the same year MIT was founded. By 1869, the Crane Theological School was organized.[26]
Miner's successor, Elmer Capen was the first president to be a Tufts alumnus. During his time, one of the earliest innovators was Amos Dolbear. In 1875, as chair of the physics department, he installed a working telephone which connected his lab in Ballou Hall to his home on Professors Row. Two years later Alexander Graham Bell would receive the patent. Dolbear's work in Tufts was later continued by Marconi and Tesla.[27] Other famous scholars include William Leslie Hooper who in addition to serving as acting president, designed the first slotted armature for dynamos. His student at the college, Frederick Stark Pearson, would eventually become one of America's pioneers of the electrical power industry. He became responsible for the development of the electric power and electric street car systems which many cities in South America and Europe used. Another notable figure is Stephen M. Babcock who developed the first practical test to determine the amount of butterfat in milk. Since its development in the college, the Babcock Test has hardly been modified. Expansion of the chemistry and biology departments were largely led by scholars Arthur Michael, who was one of the first organic chemists in the U.S., and John Sterling Kingsley, who was one of the first scholars of comparative anatomy.[28][29]

P. T. Barnum was one of the earliest benefactors of Tufts College, and the Barnum Museum of Natural History (Barnum Hall) was constructed in 1884 with funds donated by him to house his collection of animal specimens and the stuffed hide of Jumbo the elephant, who would become the university's mascot. The building stood until April 14, 1975, when fire gutted Barnum Hall, destroying the entire collection.
On July 15, 1892, the Tufts Board of Trustees voted "that the College be opened to women in the undergraduate departments on the same terms and conditions as men". Metcalf Hall opened in 1893 and served as the dormitory for women. At the same meeting, the trustees voted to create a graduate school faculty and to offer the Ph.D. degree in biology and chemistry. In 1893 the Medical School opened and in 1899 the Boston Dental College was integrated into the university. In 1890, the Department of Electrical Engineering was created, and in 1892–1893 the course of three-year program in civil engineering was extended to four years. With the advent of the four-year program the degrees granted were bachelor of civil or electrical engineering. Tufts College added the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Chemical Engineering in 1894 and 1898, respectively. In 1898, the trustees voted to formally establish an undergraduate College of Engineering.[29]
20th century

The Jackson College for Women was established in 1910 as a coordinate college adjacent to the Tufts campus. In 1980 it was integrated with the College of Liberal Arts but is still recognized in the formal name of the undergraduate arts and sciences division, the "College of Liberal Arts and Jackson College". Undergraduate women in arts and sciences continued to receive their diplomas from Jackson College until 2002.
Tufts expanded in the 1933 with the opening of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the first graduate school of international affairs in the United States. The Fletcher School began as a joint effort between Tufts and Harvard University, funded by an endowment from longtime Tufts benefactor and alumnus Austin Barclay Fletcher. Tufts assumed full administration of the Fletcher School in 1935, and strong linkages between the two schools remain.
During World War II, Tufts College was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.[30]
Due to travel restrictions imposed by World War II, the Boston Red Sox conducted spring training for the 1943 Major League season at Tufts College.[31] In 1955, continued expansion was reflected in the change of the school's name to Tufts University.[32]
The university experienced some growth during the presidency of Jean Mayer (1976–1992).[33] Mayer established Tufts' veterinary, nutrition, and biomedical schools and acquired the Grafton and Talloires campuses, at the same time lifting the university out of its dire financial situation by increasing the size of the endowment by a factor of 15.[33]
The College of Engineering added graduate study to its curriculum beginning in 1961, with master's degrees available in four departments. It added Ph.D. programs in mechanical engineering in 1963, electrical engineering in 1964, engineering design in 1981, and civil engineering in 1985. In 1984 CEO and chairman of Analogic Corporation and NeuroLogica Corporation Bernard Marshall Gordon founded the Tufts Gordon Institute as the first educational institution created to foster entrepreneurship in the engineering fields. In 1991 the New England Association of Schools and Colleges accredited the institute to confer the degree of Master of Science in Engineering Management and in 1992 the Gordon Institute became part of the College of Engineering. In 1999, the College of Engineering became the School of Engineering, when oversight of graduate engineering programs was transferred from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. As part of the same reorganization the Faculty of Arts and Science became the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering (AS&E).[34]
21st century

Under President Larry Bacow, Tufts started a capital campaign in 2006 with the goal of raising $1.2 billion to implement full need-blind admission by 2011.[35][36] As of December10,2010 the campaign raised $1.14 billion.[37] Tufts received the largest donations in its history since 2005, including a $136 million bequest to its endowment upon the dissolution of a charitable trust set up by 1911 alumnus Frank C. Doble,[38][39] a $100 million gift from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar to establish the Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund,[40] and a number of $40 million-plus gifts to specific schools.[41][42][43]
In 2008, Hines Interests and TUDC, a subsidiary of the university, planned to break ground on the South Station Tower. Tufts had acquired the air rights from South Station in 1990, with former President Jean Meyer envisioning a tower that would be the center of medical research. Preliminary design was done by Cesar Pelli, with construction now scheduled to start in 2017.[44]  However, Tufts withdrew from the project in 2009.[45]
On November 30, 2010, the university announced that Anthony P. Monaco, formerly of Oxford, would become its thirteenth president.[46] Monaco's inauguration took place on October 21, 2011.[47]
As of October 15, 2015, Computer Science surpassed International Relations as the largest major at the university, with 466 declared majors.[48]
On December 22, 2015, the university announced that it would acquire the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. The merger was completed on June 30, 2016.[49] One of the key figures in the merger, Nancy Bauer became the dean of the museum school.[50]
In December 2015, the university completed a reconstruction of the Memorial Stairs. A new Central Energy Plant is currently under construction and is set to finish in the summer of 2016. It will replace an aging 60 year old plant and provide new efficiency boilers which in addition to providing the university directly with electricity, heated and chilled water, will help the university cut emissions.[51] The university is also constructing a new science and engineering complex (SEC). The SEC will feature state of the art laboratories and foster interdisciplinary research between the neuroscience and environmental science departments. The new building will be finished by the summer of 2017 and will join the newly rehabilitated 574 Boston Avenue in the expansion of classroom and laboratory facilities for the engineering school.[52]
In 2016, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen pledged a $10 million donation over four years for the creation of the Allen Discovery Centers at Tufts and Stanford. The centers would fund research that would read and write the morphogenetic code. Tufts biologist Michael Levin will lead the center with research focusing on communications between cells and the causation of birth defects, cancer, traumatic injuries and degenerative diseases.[53][54]
Campuses
Medford and Somerville

Tufts' main campus is located on Walnut Hill in Medford and Somerville, about 5 miles (8.0km) from Boston. This campus houses all undergraduates in Arts & Sciences and Engineering, the graduate programs at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and all of the graduate programs in Arts & Sciences and Engineering. While the majority of the campus is in Medford, the Somerville line intersects it, placing parts of the lower campus in Somerville and leading to the common terms "Uphill" and "Downhill".
The "Uphill" portion of the campus comprises the academic and the residential "Rez" quads, and is enclosed by a wrought-iron fence. Classes that contributed to the building of the fence are commemorated along its length. The academic quad contains the earliest buildings and was primarily built from the middle of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. One of Tufts' first buildings, Ballou Hall was constructed from 1852–1854 and was designed in the Italianate style by the well known Boston architect Gridley James Fox Bryant. Ballou Hall was later restored by McKim, Mead, and White in 1955–56, and houses the offices of the president, the provost, and several vice presidents and deans. Other notable buildings include: Packard Hall (1856), East Hall (1860), West Hall (1871), Goddard Chapel (1882), Goddard Hall (1883), Barnum Hall (1884), and Eaton Hall (1908).[55] The New York firm Whitfield & King was responsible for the design of Eaton Hall.
The "Uphill" residential quad contains more modern buildings. The most notable building is Carmichael Hall (1954), designed by Arland A. Dirlam. Dirlam also designed Bendetson Hall (1947) on the academic quad.[56][27] Adjacent to both quads is the Cabot Intercultural Center designed by ARC/Architectural Resources Cambridge, Inc. one of the Fletcher School's buildings. Many points on the hill have noted views of the Boston skyline, particularly the patio on the Tisch Library roof. It has been ranked one of the prettiest college campuses in the United States.
The "Downhill" portion can be accessed with the memorial stairs. Designed by the Olmsted Brothers in the 1920s, the memorial stairs form one of the main entrances to the university and allows direct access to the engineering school from the academic quad. Notable buildings around the engineering school include Bromfield-Pearson Hall (1893), Robinson Hall (1899), and Curtis Hall (1894). Boston architect George Albert Clough is responsible for the design of Curtis Hall and Goddard Hall. Additionally Arland Dirlam is responsible for the designs of many buildings downhill. These include Cohen Auditorium (1950), Hodgdon Hall (1954), and Jackson Gymnasium (1947).[57] Administrative offices also occupy the surrounding neighborhoods and nearby Davis Square, where Tufts makes payments in lieu of taxes on some of its tax-exempt (educational) properties.[58]

Boston
The School of Medicine, Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, School of Dental Medicine, and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy are located on the Tufts Boston Health Science campus in the Chinatown neighborhood of Boston, adjacent to Tufts Medical Center, a 451-bed academic medical institution. All full-time Tufts Medical Center physicians hold clinical faculty appointments at Tufts School of Medicine.
The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University is located on Tufts Boston Fine Arts campus in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston, next door to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Grafton
The Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine is located in Grafton, Massachusetts, west of Boston, on a 634-acre (2.57km2) campus. The school also maintains the Ambulatory Farm Clinic in Woodstock, Connecticut and the Tufts Laboratory at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole on Cape Cod.
Talloires
Tufts has a satellite campus in Talloires, France at the Tufts European Center, a former Benedictine priory built in the 11th century. The priory was purchased in 1958 by Donald MacJannet and his wife Charlotte and used as a summer camp site for several years before the MacJannets gave the campus to Tufts in 1978. Each year the center hosts a number of summer study programs, and enrolled students live with local families. The Tufts Summit Program is for American high school students during the month of July. Tufts in Talloires is a 6-week program for Tufts undergraduates that extends from the middle of May until the end of June. Additionally Tufts in Annecy is a 4-week program which provides French language learners a chance to practice and learn the language. The site is frequently the host of international conferences and summits, most notably the Talloires Declaration which united 22 universities toward a goal of sustainability.[59] The Talloires campus has been ranked as one of the best branch campuses by the National Association of Branch Campus Administrators.[60]
Organization and administration

College/school foundingCollege/schoolYear foundedArts and Sciences1852Dental Medicine1868Religion (defunct)1869Fine Arts1876Medicine1893Engineering1898Business (defunct)1920Law and Diplomacy1933Experimental1964Veterinary Medicine1978Biomedical1981Nutrition1981Citizenship and Public Service2000

Tufts University is an independent, privately supported, nonsectarian institution of higher education. Its official corporate name is The Trustees of Tufts College. The university is governed by up to forty-one Trustees and no fewer than twenty-eight. The Trustees themselves are responsible for choosing their successors. In addition to the president the university appoints Charter Trustees (up to 30 members) who are elected by the board and Alumni Trustees (up to 10 members) who serve for up to five years. Generally Charter Trustees are elected by majority vote of the members. Alumni Trustees are elected by alumni. The Trustees appoint the President and other senior administrative officers of the university, and review and confirm faculty appointments as required. They determine the university's mission and purpose, review and approve changes in academic programs, monitor the university's financial condition, establish investment and institutional policies, and authorize the budget. The officers of the corporation include the Chair of the Board, three Vice Chairs, the Treasurer, the Secretary, the Provost, the President, who serves ex officio, and the Executive Vice President.
The President of Tufts University, who is elected by the Trustees is the chief executive officer of the university. Assisting the President in administering the university are the Provost, the Executive Vice President, the Treasurer, and the Secretary, all of whom are appointed by the Trustees on the nomination of the President and serve at their pleasure. As the 13th president Anthony Monaco was sworn on August 1, 2011. An accomplished leader, scientist and teacher, Monaco was formerly a professor and the Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Oxford. His doctoral research led to his landmark discovery of the gene responsible for X-linked Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy. He worked on the human genome project at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London and in the human genetics laboratory at the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford. Additionally he identified the first gene specifically involved in human speech and language.[61]
Tufts is organized into ten schools. Each school has its own faculty, and is led by a dean appointed by the president and the provost with the consent of the Board of Trustees. The School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering are the only schools that award both undergraduate and graduate degrees. The schools offering undergraduate education are the School of Arts and Sciences (the liberal arts college offering both the Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degree as well as the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts), the School of Engineering (which offers the Bachelor of Science degree), and the School of Special Studies. The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service and the Experimental College are non-degree granting.
The Tisch College was founded in 2000 "to educate for active citizenship" with the help of a $10 million gift from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam. The school was renamed in 2006 after a $40 million gift from Jonathan Tisch. It has been called the "most ambitious attempt by any research university to make public service part of its core academic mission".[62] The college facilitates and supports a wide range of community service, civic engagement programs, research, and teaching initiatives across the university. The university runs on a semester based calendar with most undergraduate students finishing within four years, however, Tisch College provides an innovative 1+4 Bridge year program where students have the opportunity to take a community service based gap year before starting in Tufts. Current projects undertaken by Bridge Year Fellows involve serving as mentors and teachers to children, caring for rescued wild animals, contributing to renewable energy and sustainability projects. Current projects are based in Brazil, Nicaragua, and Spain.[63]
Under the purview of the School of Arts and Sciences is the Experimental College (or ExCollege), created in 1964 as a proving ground for innovative, experimental, and interdisciplinary curricula and courses. It offers the opportunity for students to take for-credit courses with non-academic practitioners in a variety of fields, and also from upper-level undergraduates who have a chance to design and teach their own courses. Another successful component of the Ex College is EPIIC, a year-long program begun in 1985 to immerse students in a global issue, which culminates in an annual symposium of scholars and experts from the field.
Graduate education is offered in eight of the schools. In addition to Arts and Sciences and Engineering Tufts offers graduate degrees in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the oldest U.S. school for international relations and foreign affairs, the School of Dental Medicine, the School of Medicine, the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, the Friedman School of Nutrition, and the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. Additionally, the university did provide master's degrees in religion through the Crane Theological School. The school was dissolved in 1968.
Academics
Admissions

Undergraduate admissions
Tufts is one of the most selective colleges in the United States,[64] with the Princeton Review giving it a selectivity rating of 97/99.[65] In addition, U.S. News & World Report names Tufts' undergraduate admission as "most selective" [66] For the class of 2020, Tufts accepted 2,889 or 14.3% of 20,223 applicants.[67][68][69] The School of Arts and Sciences accepted 14.9% of applicants while the School of Engineering accepted 11.7%. The transfer acceptance rate was 5.6%.[70] According to Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Lee Coffin, the admissions team still deemed 8,108 students, or 40 percent of the application pool, as potentially qualified for admission.[67] Coffin went on to detail that the number of spots for enrollment at the university can offer is at 1,325 up from 1,310 last year.[67] For the matriculating class of 2016, 91% of incoming freshmen ranked in the top 10% of their high school class (up one percent from the previous year).[71] For the class of 2022, the interquartile range of SAT scores was 1410-1550 while for the ACT it was 32-35.[72]
In 2006, Dean of Arts and Sciences Robert Sternberg added experimental criteria to the application process for undergraduates to test "creativity and other non-academic factors", including inviting applicants to submit YouTube videos to supplement their application.[73] Calling it the "first major university to try such a departure from the norm", Inside Higher Ed also notes that Tufts continues to consider the SAT and other traditional criteria.[74][75]
Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Lee Coffin announced on April 7, 2015 that Tufts would be accepting illegal immigrant students with and without Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Coffin said that undocumented students would no longer be considered international students, but rather domestic students. This was due to the activism of social justice group United for Immigrant Justice. The first cohort of undocumented students is in the class of 2019.[76] The university received 21,501 undergraduate applicants in 2018.[77]
In 1856, shortly after Tufts opened, its admissions application asked for statements of good character and for students to complete examinations in Greek, history, Latin, and mathematics. As part of these examinations they were asked to study a list of relevant textbooks. By 1905 the admissions requirements became lengthier and the examinations became more complex; the latter required students to write essays and translations. Julia Ryan of The Atlantic wrote that because students certified by the New England College Entrance Certificate Board, ones who attended private preparatory schools in New England, were exempt from the examinations, "perhaps only a few students were even taking [the entrance examinations]."[78] By 1925 Tufts set an admission quota of 650 males; the examinations were of a similar length of the 1905 ones but the entry requirements decreased in size to a level comparable of that of the 1856 ones. Standardized testing, admissions interviews, and other features of current university admissions processes were in place by 1946.[78]

Graduate admissions
The graduate schools each hold their own admission process. Students apply directly to the graduate program to which they are seeking acceptance, and so acceptance rates vary dramatically between programs.
Rankings

In 2016, Forbes ranked Tufts 12th among Research Universities, and ranked the undergraduate school 18th in its America's Top Colleges ranking, which includes military academies, national universities, and liberal arts colleges.[86]  Additionally, Vault.com's 2017 rankings placed Tufts' undergraduate school 25th in the nation.[87] The 2014 Parchment student choice college rankings, which tracks enrollment decisions of 253,440 students who have been accepted to multiple schools in order to reveal their preference for their chosen school compared to the other schools that admitted the student, ranks Tufts as #17 nationally and #13 for national universities for student preference.[88] According to U.S. News & World Report's 2019 college rankings, Tufts ranks 27th in the nation, with high school guidance counselors ranking it tied for 23rd, and 173rd globally.[10] In 2018, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings placed Tufts tied for 169th in the world.[89] The university ranks in the No. 101-150 range in the 2015 Academic Ranking of World Universities[90] and 238th in the 2018 QS World University Rankings.[91] Additionally, for the class enrolling fall 2013, Forbes placed Tufts among the top 20 in "The Top 100 Colleges Ranked By SAT Scores".[92] Tufts' peer schools according to U.S. News & World Report in 2015 include Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, and Brown.[93]
Foreign Policy ranked Tufts' Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy 4th in the world for International Relations in 2009.[94] U.S. News & World Report for 2017 ranks Tufts tied for 58th for engineering among schools that grant PhD degrees, and also ranks Tufts' Medical School and Research Institute tied for 52nd in primary care and tied for 49th in research, while the Sackler School ranks 68th in their rankings of Best Graduate Schools, Biological Sciences.[10] The Boston School of Occupational Therapy, an entry-level masters program within the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at Tufts, ranks 6th in U.S. News & World Report's Best Occupational Therapy Programs.[10]  Tufts' M.A. program in philosophy ranks 1st in the United States in terms of faculty quality.[95]
Tufts was named by Newsweek as one of the "25 New Ivies" in 2006.[96] In The Princeton Review's 2010–2011 "Best 363 Colleges", Tufts was ranked 14th for the happiest students and its study abroad program was ranked 3rd in the country.[97][98] According to the October 2010 rankings compiled by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Tufts ranked 12th in the country (tied with both Harvard and Johns Hopkins) with 17 Fulbright scholars.[99] Tufts also ranks 4th among medium-sized schools for the number of Teach for America volunteers it produces.[100] Because of its continual growth as an institution, Tufts was ranked as the 5th "hottest school" of the decade from 2000–10.[101] Tufts was ranked the 450th top college in the United States by Payscale and CollegeNet's Social Mobility Index college rankings.[102]
Collaborations
Students can pursue a five-year program with the New England Conservatory. The Cosmology department also offers joint seminars with MIT. Organized by Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin, the seminars are open to all students.[103] The Fletcher School also operates dual degree programs with Harvard Law School, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, UC Berkeley School of Law among others.[104] Several academic consortiums allow for research collaboration between local schools. Examples exist with the Program on Negotiation,[105] the ROTC,[106] the Tufts-New England Medical Center,[107] the Center for European Studies,[108] and the School of Engineering.[109] Several exchange programs allow students to study at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and the Sciences Po in Paris.[110] Cross registration exists for undergraduate students with schools in the Boston Consortium. Fletcher and other graduate students may cross register with the graduate schools at Harvard and MIT.[111][112]

Tufts has offered study abroad programs with various universities for the past 40 years. Tufts has semester and year long programs with Pembroke College of the University of Oxford, University College London, Royal Holloway University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of Paris, Sciences Po Paris, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, University of Tübingen, Zhejiang University, and University of Hong Kong.[17] Every year more than 500 undergraduate students study abroad, with most doing it during their junior and senior years.[113]
Libraries and museums

Completed in 1908, Tufts' first library building, Eaton Memorial Library (now Eaton Hall), was made possible with a donation from Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie's wife requested that the building be named after a Tufts graduate, Reverend Charles Eaton, who had presided over her wedding. The building received an extension in 1950 with the construction of the War Memorial Library in honor of the Tufts alumni who served in World War II. By 1965 the collection outgrew the building and was moved to a new library named Wessell Library. Additionally the demand for more square footage prompted the expansion of Wessell. In 1995, with the addition of 80,000 more square feet, the library was renamed Tisch Library.[114]
Today the Tufts University Library System contains over three million volumes. The main library, Tisch Library, holds about 2.7 million volumes, with other holdings dispersed at subject libraries including the Hirsh Health Sciences Library on the Boston campus, the Edwin Ginn Library at the Fletcher School, and Webster Family Library at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine on the Grafton campus.[93] Students have access to the academic libraries of institutions in the Boston Consortium. Tufts is also a member of SHARES, which allows students to have library access in participating members such as Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Caltech, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Princeton, Stanford, UPenn and Yale.[115] Furthermore, students may apply for privileges to Harvard's Library System.[116] Tufts also runs the Perseus Project, a digital library project that assembles digital collections of humanities resources.
In addition to the Barnum Museum of Natural History, Tufts had established a permanent art collection which includes a wide range of art from antiquity to the present. The Collection comprises 2,000 works from ancient Mediterranean and pre-Hispanic cultures to modern and contemporary painting, sculpture, and photography. Notable highlights in the permanent collection include works by John Singer Sargent, Albrecht Dürer, Isamu Noguchi, Auguste Rodin, Andy Warhol, Milton Resnick, Salvador Dali, and Pablo Picasso among others. Exhibitions of the collection rotate annually in the Aidekman Arts Center.[117]
Student life

Student body
According to the Princeton Review the undergraduate student body is ethnically and socioeconomically diverse.[120] The Advocate ranks Tufts as one of the top 20 gay-friendly campuses.[121] Of those accepted for admission to the undergraduate Class of 2019, 27 percent are Asian, Hispanic, African-American, or two or more races. There were 145 international students and 6 illegal immigrants  or DACA students[122] Of domestic students admitted, some 31 percent self-identified as one or more races other than Caucasian, including Asian Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans. International students make up 15 percent of the undergraduate student population. Students come from all 50 states and represent 71 countries.[123] The top 10 countries represented are China, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Turkey, Singapore, Canada, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam.[124]
Student government
There are three forms of student government at Tufts University: the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate, the TCU Judiciary and the CSL (Committee on Student Life). The Senate is chaired by the student body president and led by a six-person executive board consisting of Vice President, Treasurer, Historian, Parliamentarian, and Diversity and Community Affairs Officer.[125]
Publications and broadcasting
The Tufts Daily is the daily student newspaper, and the Tufts Observer, established in 1895, is the school's biweekly magazine and the oldest publication on campus. The Zamboni is Tufts' monthly humor and satire magazine. The Princeton Review has named Tufts' college newspaper as one of the best in the country, currently ranking it No. 10.[120] Tufts has a television station (TUTV) which has produced and broadcast films, news, soap operas, and comedy sketch pieces. TUTV has also gone to release web series such as "Jules and Monty". The station went operational in April 1977, from Curtis Hall and consists of 40 student volunteers. Curtis Hall is also home to Tufts' own radio station WMFO, which streams locally on 91.5 FM. The station first aired in 1970 and is funded by the university.
Activism

In 1969, Tufts was the center for Civil Rights activism due to the controversy surrounding the construction of Lewis Hall. Students staged a work strike to protest racist hiring policies practiced by the construction company Tufts had commissioned to build the residence hall. In addition to writing letters, students sat in Ballou and East Halls, and collaborated with black workers. These demonstrations eventually attracted support from major metropolitan areas in the Northeast. In 1970, Tufts adopted new hiring policies which were subsequently adopted by other universities. It led to the creation of training programs for minority employees on campus, in addition to the foundation of the Africana Center.[126]
Greek life
There are 13 total Greek life organizations at Tufts. About 25% of the student body is involved in Greek life.[127] The six national fraternities with chapters at Tufts are Delta Tau Delta, Delta Upsilon, Theta Chi, Theta Delta Chi, Zeta Beta Tau, and Zeta Psi. In addition, there are four sororities: Alpha Omicron Pi, Alpha Phi, Chi Omega, and Kappa Alpha Theta. There is also one co-ed fraternity, ATO of Massachusetts, and a local fraternity, Pi Rho Omega.
Athletics

Tufts competes in the New England Small College Athletic Conference—the NESCAC—in NCAA Division III. Their mascot is Jumbo, which is one of two college mascots to appear in Webster's Dictionary with the other being the Billiken of St. Louis University. The mascot comes from P. T. Barnum's circus, as Barnum was one of the original trustees of Tufts College. According to legend, Jumbo the Elephant heroically jumped in front of a train, sacrificing himself to save a younger elephant from dying. Jumbo's stuffed skin was donated to the school, and was displayed until a 1975 fire destroyed the body, except for the tail, which had been removed for conservation work. Now, a statue of the elephant is a prominent landmark on the quad, near Barnum Hall, the Biology building.
Recently, Tufts has become one of the top athletic schools in Division III. The school has consistently ranked in the top ten of the Learfield Director's Cup, which ranks the top Division I, II, and III athletic programs in the country by awarding points in a pre-determined number of sports for men and women. In 2015-16, Tufts ranked 4th in the country, and in 2014-15 Tufts ranked 9th. Tufts men's lacrosse team won the school's first ever NCAA team championship in 2010, beating Salisbury State University in the championship game. They lost in 2011 to Salisbury in the championship.[128] In 2012, the women's field hockey team won their first national championship, beating Montclair State University 2–1 in the finals. Coach Tina McDavitt won DIII National Coach of the Year in 2012, as well.[129] The field hockey team had previously been national runners-up in 2008.[130] The women's softball team won three consecutive NCAA Division III National Championships  in 2013, 2014 and 2015.[131] The men's lacrosse team won their second NCAA Division III National Championship in 2014 and their third Championship in 2015, beating Lynchburg.[132] On December 6, 2014, the men's soccer team won its first-ever DIII National Championship, defeating Wheaton College 4-2. The Jumbos repeated this feat two years later, winning the DIII National Championship in 2016 by defeating Calvin College 1-0.[133] The men's and women's squash teams have been historically successful, ranking within the top 30 teams in the nation.[134] The Men's Varsity Swim and Dive team won the first NESCAC Championship in school history in 2018 and the team placed 7th in the nation at the National Championship meet that same year.[135]
Tufts also fields a team of runners each year for the Boston Marathon, raising money for the Friedman School's research initiatives.  Originally an initiative started by then President Larry Bacow as the Presidential Marathon Challenge, it has been continued by President Monaco.  At one time Tufts was granted 200 race bibs a year and students, alumni, and other affiliates would be trained by Coach Donald Megerle from the Fall until the day itself, the current number of bibs per year is 50. Many of the runners are first-time marathoners, and it is tradition for participants to wear their Boston Marathon medals at graduation.
Performed at most football games, "Tuftonia's Day", the Tufts fight song, was written in 1912 by Elliot W. Hayes. It can also be heard at Tufts' numerous a capella concerts and at homecoming.[136]

Housing and dining

Seven out of ten undergraduates live on campus. Students can choose from 40 residences from small special interest houses, to traditional dorms, to shared apartments. There are 25 residence halls. Similar to residential colleges, students would frequently organize discussions and bring in guest speakers and plan several activities together. Upperclassmen have the option of living in special interest housing which are 15 houses reflecting a specific cultural or academic interest. Each house offers organizes several activities and events not limited to residents. Shared apartments are usually the most popular in the university with apartments like Sophia Gordon Hall (SoGo) a primary gathering place for juniors and seniors. The high density residential neighborhood around the university provides additional housing for students who opt to live off campus.[137]
The university has two main dining centers, Dewick-MacPhie serving downhill students, and Carmichael serving uphill students. Each dining hall has a different menu and atmosphere. Both offer a European-style servery with multiple stations. The Princeton Review has listed Tufts in its "Best Campus Food" category since 2005, ranking it as high as second.[138][139][140] The menus for these dining halls can be found at . In addition to the two main dining centers, there are a variety of smaller cafes, including a Kosher Deli and Hodgdon Food-To-Go which offers students a place to grab a quick bite to go.[141]
Traditions

A Cappella
Tufts also has a thriving a cappella scene, including the Beelzebubs, known for their performances on NBC's The Sing-Off and Glee, where the group arranged several of the songs performed by the fictional a cappella group, The Warblers. Other notable groups include the Amalgamates, known also for their performances all over the United States, and the Jackson Jills, Tufts' oldest female group.
Naked Quad Run
Every winter just prior to final exams, students would run naked laps on the Academic Quad as a way to relieve the stress of finals, much akin to similar traditions such as the Primal Scream at Harvard. Due to increasing scrutiny from the administration and injuries incurred by slipping on the icy roads, the tradition was banned in 2011 by then-President Lawrence Bacow,[142] much to students' dismay.[143][144][145] A protest run took place the following year, with some students donning nude colored leotards and others taking the opposite tack calling their event the "Excessively Overdressed Quad Stroll".[146] Starting in 2016, the tradition was revitalized for spring finals week and briefly became an annual tradition once more.
JumboSmash
JumboSmash is an application built from scratch every year by students in the computer science department.[147] The idea has its origins in a 2012 submission to a Tufts hackathon.[148] Several students involved in its creation described it as "a localized, college-seniors-only Tinder app" available during the week before graduation.[149][150] The 2017 iteration registered 1 million swipes in the first 24 hours.[151] Per tradition, the developers delete the app at the end of senior week, and the next year's group starts from scratch.[147]
Notable people

Tufts alumni in the government sector include Admiral James Stavridis, current dean of The Fletcher School at Tufts University and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO (M.A.L.D. 1983, Ph.D. 1984); Mulatu Teshome Wirtu (M.A.L.D 1990), President of Ethiopia since 2013; Kostas Karamanlis (M.A. 1982, Ph.D. 1984), former Prime Minister of Greece; Shashi Tharoor (M.A. 1976, M.A.L.D. 1977, Ph.D. 1979), former United Nations Under-Secretary General and Indian Minister; Daniel Patrick Moynihan (B.A. 1948, M.A. 1949, Ph.D. 1961), former-US Senator from New York and US Ambassador to the United Nations; Scott Brown (B.A. 1981), former-US Senator from Massachusetts; Bill Richardson (B.A. 1970), former-Governor of New Mexico, US Secretary of Energy and US Ambassador to the United Nations; Thomas R. Pickering (M.A. 1954), diplomat; Joseph Dunford (M.A. 1992), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Peter DeFazio (B.A. 1969), Democratic United States Representative from Oregon.
Graduates who have found success in business include Pierre Omidyar (B.S. 1988), eBay founder; Laura Lang (B.A. 1977), CEO of Time Inc; Jamie Dimon (B.A. 1978), CEO of JPMorgan Chase; John Bello (B.A. 1968), SoBe Beverages founder; Jeff Kindler (B.A. 1977), former CEO of Pfizer; Jonathan Tisch (B.A. 1976), CEO of Loews Hotels; Ellen J. Kullman (B.A. 1978), CEO of DuPont; and Anthony Scaramucci (B.A. 1976), Cofounder of SkyBridge Capital and Former Director of Communications for the Trump Administration.
In media, alumni include David Faber (B.A. 1985), anchor at CNBC; Meredith Vieira (B.A. 1975), journalist and TV personality; Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. (B.A. 1974), publisher of The New York Times; and Peter Roth (B.A. 1972), CEO of Warner Bros. Television, Josh Gates; [TV host, producer, explorer, and writer]In the arts, alumni include William Hurt (B.A. 1972), Academy Award-winning actor; Hank Azaria (B.A. 1988), actor and voice actor; Peter Gallagher (B.A. 1977), actor; Tracy Chapman (B.A. 1987), singer-songwriter; Deke Sharon (B.A. 1991), a cappella musician; Darin Strauss (B.A. 1992), National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author; Ruben Bolling (real name Ken Fisher) (B.A. 1984), cartoonist and writer; and Gregory Maguire (Ph.D. 1990), novelist.
Other alumni include Michelle Kwan (M.A. 2011), Olympic medalist and World Champion figure skater from the United States; Frederick Hauck (B.A. 1962), spacecraft commander of the Space Shuttle Discovery; Rear Admiral Leo Otis Colbert (B.S. 1907), the third Director of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey; and Thelma C. Swain (B.A. 1931), Maine philanthropist.
Notable drop-outs include actress Jessica Biel, actor Rainn Wilson, American Apparel founder Dov Charney, and country music singer songwriter Darrell Scott.   The fictional character Elaine Benes from Seinfeld claims that she attended Tufts, calling it her "safety school," a common Tufts stereotype in the 1990s.
Current and former Tufts faculty include former American Psychological Association president Robert Sternberg, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Martin J. Sherwin, preeminent philosopher Daniel Dennett, Nobel Laureate Allan M. Cormack (1924–1998), Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson, Nobel Laureate Wassily Leontief, Nobel Laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, regular featured columnist in Foreign Policy Magazine, Daniel W. Drezner, radio host Lonnie Carton, Japanese author Haruki Murakami, and author Lee Edelman.

Notable Tufts University alumni include:
Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay (BS, 1988)
Vannevar Bush, inventor and science administrator, founder of Raytheon (BS, 1913; MS, 1913)
Tracy Chapman, Grammy Award-winning artist (BA, 1986)
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase (BA, 1978)
Norbert Wiener, mathematician, originator of cybernetics (BA, 1909)
Michelle Kwan, American figure skater and two time Olympic medalist (MA, 2011)
 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. Senator from New York (BS, 1948; MA, 1949; PhD, 1961)
Meredith Vieira, American journalist, talk show and game show host (BA, 1975)
Victor McKusick, geneticist, known as the father of medical genetics (COL, 1943)
Joi Ito, Japanese entrepreneur, Director of MIT Media Lab (COL, 1985)
Gordon Wood, historian, Pulitzer Prize winning author (BA, 1955)
Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia and recipient of the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize (MA, 1981)
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., Publisher of The New York Times (BA, 1974)
Peter Gallagher, American actor, musician, and writer (BA,1977)
Hank Azaria, American actor, voice actor, comedian, and producer (BA, 1985)

See also

The Edward R. Murrow Forum on Issues in Journalism
The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs
PRAXIS: The Fletcher Journal of Human Security
Tufts Historical Review
Tuftsin
Tufts Jumbos football
Tufts Magazine
Tufts Observer
Tufts OpenCourseWare
Tufts Pass
University Press of New England

Further reading
Sol Gittleman: An Entrepreneurial University: The Transformation of Tufts, 1976-2002, Tufts University Press, 2002, ISBN1584654163
Diversity, Resiliency, Legacy: The Lives of Adult Students at Tufts University, ed. by Jean Hebert and Tina Marie Johnson, Tufts University Press, 2008, ISBN0595500463

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