Lawrence S. Bacow - Biography

Lawrence S. Bacow became the twelfth President of Tufts University on September 1, 2001. A lawyer and economist whose research focuses on environmental policy, he holds faculty appointments in five departments at Tufts: Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning; Economics; Civil and Environmental Engineering; Public Health and Family Medicine in the Medical School; and in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Since coming to Tufts, President Bacow established the Task Force on the Undergraduate Experience to explore the potential of Tufts' undergraduate academic, residential and co-curricular offerings. Numerous task force recommendations have been implemented, highlighted by the recent construction of Sophia Gordon Hall to expand on-campus housing for Tufts students.  President Bacow oversaw the 10-year reaccreditation of Tufts by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. He reorganized administration in Arts, Sciences & Engineering to increase resources for faculty and appointed the Council on Graduate Education to strengthen graduate programs university wide. He launched a plan to expand the basic sciences at the School of Medicine and successfully worked with hospital officials to restore the university's name to Tufts-New England Medical Center. On the Medford/Somerville campus, he led a thoughtful master planning process to preserve the sense of place that makes the campus special while also identifying new space for teaching, research, office, student, residential and other uses.  Construction of a new music building is underway, and preliminary planning has begun for a new laboratory building for biology and engineering.   President Bacow has strengthened relations between Tufts and its host communities, initiating activities such as Community Day on the Medford/Somerville campus and an annual symposium on active citizenship and community partnerships.  He has emphasized increased collaboration among Tufts' schools and generated creativity and enthusiasm for interdisciplinary study. Under President Bacow’s leadership, Tufts has enjoyed its four most successful years of fundraising as well as research support.

President Bacow founded The President’s Marathon Challenge at Tufts in 2003, bringing together Tufts community members to run and volunteer at the Boston Marathon in support of nutrition, medical and fitness research and education.  In 2006, the fourth year of the challenge, Tufts again had the strongest representation at the marathon among any area university, fielding nearly 200 runners and hundreds of volunteers.  The team was led by President Bacow.  It was his fourth marathon, and third Boston Marathon.

President Bacow recently served on the Board of Directors of the American Council on Education and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts.  He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  President Bacow is a director of Tufts-New England Medical Center, Cummings Foundation, the Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund, and Campus Compact. He is an active leader within the New England Small Colleges Athletic Conference and a trustee of Wheaton College. He is a frequent keynote speaker on higher education and environmental issues.

Prior to coming to Tufts, Dr. Bacow was the Chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies. A gifted teacher and scholar, he taught courses in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, the Economics Department, the Political Science Department, and the Sloan School of Management. Dr. Bacow chaired the MIT faculty and held visiting professorships and research appointments at five universities abroad. An internationally recognized expert on non-adjudicatory approaches to the resolution of environmental disputes, he has authored four books and numerous articles, and has consulted extensively throughout the world.

President Bacow's wife, Adele Fleet Bacow, is an accomplished city planner who heads the firm, Community Partners Consultants, Inc. They have two sons: Jay, who works for Venice Capital, a hedge fund based in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Ken, a financial analyst for Deutsche Bank in New York City.

President Bacow received his S.B. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his J.D. from Harvard Law School and his M.P.P. and Ph.D. from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

July 2006