General information about the School.
Here we are in mid-August, with the mercury stubbornly high and a pretty summery feeling overall. There’s still a bit of beach weather left in the season, but we’re already welcoming a few students who technically begin their Fletcher careers today, a few weeks ahead of the official start of the semester.
Read more
In some ways, summer can feel like a long season at Fletcher. I’ll admit that the hush that descends after the buzz of graduation is a welcome change for a few weeks, but pretty soon we get to missing our students. After a while, the quiet months can feel, well, quiet, and we start looking forward to the energy that comes with hundreds of students returning to campus. For our facilities folks, though, I imagine the season can feel barely long enough to get anything done.
Read more
And just like that, members of the Fletcher Class of 2019 are officially alumni! It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were busy convoking the academic year, and here we are already recapping the season’s most anticipated finale outside of Westeros. On the weather side of things, there’s mixed news to report. For Saturday’s Class Day festivities, we lucked into probably the nicest day we’ve had all spring. Sunny, warm, and just generally the kind of day that makes you want to hang around outside. For Commencement itself on Sunday, less so. While the big tent provides good protection from the vicissitudes of the sky, the ground makes itself felt in a downpour, too, and there are likely a few muddy pairs of Maglis and Manolos due for a cleaning this week.
Read moreThere’s so much going on at Fletcher, particularly during the last few weeks of the academic year, that it can sometimes feel impossible to keep up. It’s certainly impossible to highlight on this blog every newsworthy item I come across. A few bits of news from the past month or so, unmentioned until now in this space, that are well worth highlighting.
Read more
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are amazingly powerful tools. Take a few moments to study a well-designed map, and you’ll be amazed by the amount of information it can simultaneously convey. Way back in my own Fletcher student days, I enrolled in the inaugural offering of GIS for International Applications at Fletcher, mostly out of curiosity and the desire to pick up the rudiments of a new skill set. While I haven’t gone on to do further GIS work, and while modest would be a charitable description of the mapping project I produced in that course, it did leave me with an understanding for and appreciation of the explanatory power of contemporary mapping technology and technique.
Read more
The official portrait of former Fletcher Dean James Stavridis was recently unveiled in a ceremony here, which the Dean himself attended. While I wasn’t able to make it to the event, I did get a chance to check out the latest addition to the Ginn Library Reading Room recently, before it gets hung to join other Deans past. It’s a good likeness, as we’d of course expect an official portrait to be. Having had the opportunity to get to know Dean Stavridis relatively well, I immediately noticed a few details and artistic choices that capture his particular bearing and personality.
Read more
A recommendation I often give prospective students during their visits to Fletcher is to take some time just to hang out in the Hall of Flags between visiting classes, chatting with students over coffee, meeting with faculty members, and talking to us. Regular blog readers will know I’m big on the idea of “fit” between school and student, and fit can sometimes be a function of intangible qualities of a place that might not come through as much in more formal or structured meetings. Sometimes a place can just feel more right to you than another. I imagine the Hall of Flags to be a good barometer of the general feeling and energy level of Fletcher at any given time, and my hope is always that a casual stretch of downtime there will show prospective students that Fletcher is where they want to be.
Read moreAs we all know, everything in the world has its opposite: every Superman has his Bizarro, Mr. Glass his David Dunn, Pepsi its Crystal Pepsi. Fletcher is no different, and it’s around this time each year that rumblings of Disorientation Week (“Dis-O,” in the parlance of our times) start hitting the internal streams. Dis-O acts as a graduating-student counterweight to the beginning of students’ time at Fletcher, Flexo to orientation week’s Bender. Taking place after finals but before commencement, Dis-O is a communal release valve for graduating students to spend a bit of time together doing anything other than reading, writing papers, and meeting with study groups.
Read more
Fletcher is one of the few places where being able to drop in casually on a conversation with a Nobel Peace Prize laureate seems like a fairly normal Monday afternoon activity. Still, it felt like a special treat yesterday to catch the visit to Fletcher by former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. Santos was Colombia’s President from 2010 to 2018, and is best known globally for his stewardship of peace negotiations with the FARC rebels that led to the end of the country’s 52-year conflict (and which earned him the 2016 Nobel). The event was also a special homecoming: President Santos is a long time member of the Fletcher community, having spent time here as a Fulbright visiting fellow in 1981.
Read more
It’s only Wednesday, but it’s already been an exciting week at Fletcher! This past Monday saw a beautiful confluence of events: the 160+ visitors here for admitted student Open House were treated to the news of the appointment of Rachel Kyte as the next Dean of The Fletcher School. Below is the announcement to the Tufts community from President Anthony Monaco and Provost Deborah Kochevar. You can also read the press release and view and introductory video on the Fletcher website. A hearty welcome to Dean Kyte!
Read more