The Tufts campus readies for commencement

Commencement activities will take place at Tufts this weekend, and they’re on the radar either directly or indirectly for virtually all administrative corners of Fletcher. But even an out-of-the-loop, first-time visitor to Tufts this week would be able to tell that something’s afoot, with all the visible prep and last-minute campus beautification going on. To be fair, the window of decent weather in which to work prior to graduation is pretty small in this part of the country, and the several weeks of chill, rain, and gloom we’ve recently endured here hasn’t helped matters, but there’s nonetheless still something of a madcap quality to all the buzzing about and cosmetic improvements happening at the moment. A typical New England winter puts a world of hurt on walkways, streets, lawns, and gardens, so at the moment campus is something of an obstacle course of loads of touch-up mulch, freshly-poured concrete, and new patches of sod. Even the cannon has returned to its formal dress black, and as regular readers know, the cannon is basically never an unsullied black. And speaking of unsullied, dig the chairs! So many chairs. The host of chairs currently arranged on the main quad evoke the Unsullied preparing to lay siege to King’s Landing. Every last one will be occupied this weekend for undergraduate commencement.

On the Fletcher side of campus, the tents are up and ready to go for the weekend. Nice weather is obviously always a boon for any outdoor commencement, but particularly helpful in our case as Fletcher Field has a way of getting pretty soggy pretty quickly in a downpour (tough to navigate in heels!). At the time of this writing, the prospect of outright sun looks a bit uncertain, but it’s at least shaping up to be a blessedly dry weekend. No matter what the weather may have in store, though, the Tufts campus will be in tip-top shape, and the festivities will go on!