An annotated Fletcher tour: the Murrow Memorial Room

As physical visits to Fletcher aren’t currently possible, this series attempts to provide the next best thing in the form of a blog-based virtual tour. Today’s showcase: the Murrow Memorial Room.

Certain spaces just feel “important” somehow. There’s nowhere at Fletcher for which that’s more true than the Murrow Memorial Room, named in honor of famed broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow. Anyone in search of leather-bound books and a smell of rich mahogany should look no further. Many first-time visitors to Fletcher will spend some time in Murrow, as most in-person Admissions information sessions take place here. It’s also where we hold Admissions Committee meetings, and it hosts PhD dissertation defenses, a variety of meetings, and more intimate lectures and events.

The Murrow Room is an outgrowth of the Edward R. Murrow Center for a Digital World, a Fletcher research center focused on media, cyberspace, and government. It houses a significant part of the Murrow Collection, including personal books, papers, awards, memorabilia, and other Murrow miscellanea (with a large amount of additional material available through the Tufts Digital Collections and Archives). A few visitors (including me) have inquired if the half-full whiskey bottle in a display cabinet contains its original contents, but the unverified word is that it is not, in fact, the real thing. Iced tea, anyone?

Whether as a prospective applicant or current student, it’s hard to spend significant time at Fletcher without finding yourself in the Murrow Room at some point.