http://www.somerville.k12.ma.us

http://dental.tufts.edu/

http://dental.tufts.edu/

http://giving.tufts.edu/why_give/2007profiles/buchanan.html

http://www.tufts.edu/development/why_give/2008difference/dentalexpand.html

http://provost.tufts.edu/1174149600661/Provost-Page-prov2w_1174149600987.html

Tufts University - Index

Tufts University - Beyond Boundaries Newsletter Winter 2008 - Index

has made a community-wide effort
to curb childhood obesity.
Not only have Somerville schools
nearly doubled the amount of fresh
fruit in school lunches, but local restaurants
have also switched to lowfat
milk and smaller portion sizes,
and the city has added bike racks
and repainted crosswalks to encourage
walking to school.
The Somerville experiment is working.
According to a report published
in May 2007 in the medical journal
Obesity, Somerville schoolchildren
during the 2003-04 school year
gained less weight—as much as a
pound less—than children in two
nearby communities used as a control
group. The news made the front
page of the Wall Street Journal and
was reported by NBC Nightly News,
ABC’s Nightline, and CNN, among
other media outlets.
The PepsiCo foundation grant will
enable the experiment to be tried in
three more communities.
Claire Lyons, manager of global
grant programs for the PepsiCo
Foundation, said: “PepsiCo
Foundation is delighted to continue
supporting the important
and groundbreaking work of Dr.
Economos and her team. We
believe the community-based intervention
model, which is the framework
for the Shape Up spread, is a
superior method in helping communities
become healthier places to
live, work, and go to school.”
Economos presented her research
at the second annual Friedman
School Symposium in October.
“There are many communities
around the country attempting to
make changes, and what this study
tells us is they should persevere,”
she offers. “A lot of people making
a few small changes added up to
produce significant results.”
Winter 2008
The Height
of Generosity
One afternoon this fall, in the School of
Dental Medicine lobby that bears his
name, Dr. Robert D. Buchanan, D46, sat
down next to a statue of himself and gave
his likeness a playful rub on the head. For
luck? “Of course,” he said, with a smile, “Why not?”
The Tufts University School of Dental Medicine
has been lucky to have Dr. Buchanan, a longtime school
benefactor whose past generosity is recalled in the lobby
name and welcoming statue at the school’s entrance.
Now, to mark his class’ 60th anniversary,
Buchanan, 85, of Pueblo, Colo., has announced a
$1 million planned gift to benefit the school’s building
renovation. His is the first major gift toward the
expansion project that will add five floors to the
Dental School’s building at One Kneeland Street.
Buchanan, indeed, is an enduring presence at
TUSDM. For his generous support of the renovation
of the entrance of the Dental School, his statue was
unveiled in 1998 in the lobby named in his honor.
On the occasion of his 50th reunion in 1996, he created
a $1.5 million trust to establish the school’s first
departmental chair, in operative dentistry.
“Dr. Buchanan’s latest gift will—literally—bring
our school to new heights,” says Dean Lonnie Norris,
DMD, MPH. “We are exceedingly grateful for his
support, and for his continued presence in the life of
Tufts University School of Dental Medicine.”
On his recent visit to the Dental School, Buchanan
good-naturedly tried on a hard hat as he surveyed an
architect’s model of the One Kneeland Street building,
to be heightened by five stories. The $16-million
vertical expansion project will add much-needed clinical
and teaching space. “I think it’s going to be very
beautiful when it’s done,” he observes.
Buchanan says he remains grateful for the training
Tufts gave him, and feels fortunate to be able to
give back to the school. “Tufts is where I gained my
livelihood,” he notes. “If I didn’t have that training, I
might be out digging ditches. I believe that if I have
the means, it’s my duty to support Tufts.”
When support was sought for the school’s vertical
expansion project, Buchanan was the first to offer it.
I told Dean Norris, ‘This is such a wonderful place;
I’m going to make you a little donation,’” he recalls.
“I hope it will inspire others to give.”
“ I told Dean Norris,
‘This is such a
wonderful place;
I’m going to make
you a little donation.’”
BEYOND BOUNDARIES