University President Anthony Monaco and Tisch College Dean Alan Solomont met the Spanish king and hosted events for the Tufts community, including 1+4 Bridge-Year students
Tufts Officials Visit Alumni and Students in Spain
Tufts President Anthony P. Monaco and Tisch College Dean Alan D. Solomont visited Spain in October, meeting with officials, including King Felipe VI, and with alumni and Tufts students studying there.
Monaco and Solomont, the former U.S. ambassador to Spain and Andorra, talked with the Spanish king about higher education as well as world events. “We were honored to meet with King Felipe, and we thank him for his gracious hospitality,” said Monaco. “Through our students, our faculty and our alumni, Tufts is proud of our longstanding relationship with Spain, and we look forward to broadening our connections going forward.” They gave the king, an Olympic sailor who competed at the 1992 Games in Barcelona, a Tufts Sailing cap.
They also met with Tufts alumni at a lunch hosted by Plácido Arango, A81P, A84P, an emeritus trustee of the university, and visited current and former study-abroad students. Tufts in Madrid and Alcalá is one of the university’s oldest and largest study-abroad programs, having hosted 1,350 students over the past 40 years; 29 students are currently studying in Spain.
Madrid is also one of three sites for the inaugural year of the Tufts 1+4 Bridge-Year Service Learning Program, in which students do a year of community service before beginning their undergraduate studies at Tufts. Four Tufts 1+4 fellows are in Madrid working with the Alicia Koplowitz Foundation, which serves vulnerable children displaced from their families. Solomont met with the Tufts 1+4 group and Alicia Koplowitz, and accompanied the fellows on a tour of his former home, the U.S. Embassy in Madrid.
Monaco and Solomont also met with officials from Santander Universities, a division of Santander Bank and one of the major donors to the Tufts 1+4 program, to update them on the program’s progress. One of the 1+4 fellows in Madrid wrote recently in her blog, “It has been nearly seven weeks since I arrived in Madrid, and I am just where I need to be,” a message that Monaco and Solomont echoed.
