Tufts University - Index

Tufts University - Tufts Tisch College Beyond Boundaries - Index

The overarching goal of Tisch College? To help make
social responsibility and active citizenship central
to every young person’s education—at Tufts and far
beyond.
The benefits might seem obvious: clearly, when
we help students become engaged citizens and
community leaders, the communities they join
stand to gain in countless ways. What’s more, our
impact extends beyond the individuals we actually
teach and the groups they actually work with: active
citizenship is contagious! One person with a passion
for community improvement can inspire dozens more.
W O R L D ,
F E T M E .
Yet at least as striking
are the benefits to our
students themselves. From
absorbing the ethic of active
citizenship—and putting it in
practice—our students gain
hands-on experience in helping
communities grow more effective
and less wasteful, more just and
more humane. They develop
a lasting passion to repair the
world, an instinct to push for
systemic solutions and the stamina to persevere
even when progress is exquisitely slow. They learn
to listen to people whose backgrounds may be
different from theirs and—rarest of all—to work with
those with whom they disagree. And they gain the
fundamental expectation that they should have a
voice and a role in their communities all their lives.
In the end, with the skills and habits to advance the
greater good, and an inspiring sense of being part
of something larger than themselves, our students
blossom into vigorous, irrepressible citizens who can
fulfill the deep promise of democracy. And that is
surely good for us all.
SARAH
KOHNSTAMM, A07
Hometown: Larchmont, New York
Major: Child development, and communications
and media studies
Tisch Scholar
Although she will deny it, Sarah Kohnstamm
just might be magic; how else could she conjure
a group of 70 Tufts student volunteers to help
her stage a one-day festival for 100 families to
promote diversity in the Medford Public Schools?
It was her crowning achievement as a Tisch
Scholar and the final chapter in a long, happy
love affair with the city of Medford. Sarah hopes
one day to be a teacher, but we know in many
ways she already is one.
“ Tisch gives you a social eye—an instinct to
look for deeper solutions and go to the root of
a problem. When I speak at conferences about
Tisch, students from other universities come up
to me and say, ‘How do we get what you’ve got?’”