By Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

In recent weeks, west Somerville residents – and several elected officials, including Ward 7 Alderman and Board President Bob Trane – have been understandably upset by the rude behavior of some Tufts students. As Trane has noted, it’s simply unacceptable for late-night drinking and rowdiness to spill off-campus and spoil the peace and quiet of our residential neighborhoods. So, since public drunkenness can all too easily move from being an annoyance to an actual public safety hazard, residents should call 911 if they see or hear a problem: the Somerville and Tufts Police maintain joint patrols in the area and they will respond together to any reports of trouble. The Tufts administration and faculty take these incidents seriously and have an array of penalties at their disposal to help them discipline students (or student organizations) that breach the peace.

That said, it‚Äôs worth remembering that Tufts has been, and continues to be, a welcome and valuable neighbor. While many students at Harvard and MIT make Somerville their home, Tufts‚Äô is the only campus with which we share a direct and extensive border.  Since 2004, when Tufts President Lawrence Bacow and I negotiated a first-ever ‚Äútown-gown‚Äù agreement, Tufts has begun making direct in-lieu-of-tax contributions that will net the City of Somerville more than $1.2 million over a ten-year period.

Tufts also makes numerous contributions to our civic life by participating in joint initiatives designed to boost the city‚Äôs health, quality of life and future prosperity.  Tufts hosted, and participated in, an Economic Symposium ‚Äì another first in the city‚Äôs history ‚Äì that highlighted the advantages of Somerville to a wide array of commercial and residential developers.  Through its participation in our Life Sciences Collaborative, Tufts has helped us market the city as a new area of expansion for the rapidly expanding biotech industry.

Tufts students have provided distinguished service as volunteers in a variety of our community organizations and service groups, including the Somerville Public Schools, Teen Empowerment, the Somerville Arts Council, the Somerville Museum, Groundwork Somerville, the Somerville Community Youth Program, and the Somerville Community Corporation.

Perhaps the most visible joint effort between Tufts and our city has been the nationally recognized “Shape Up Somerville” program to reduce the incidence of childhood obesity in Somerville by changing the culture, environment and nutritional tactics of the entire community.

The early evidence from ‚ÄúShape Up Somerville‚Äù is very promising: the data published by Dr. Christine Economos of Tufts‚Äô School of Nutrition Science and Policy suggest that children can be prevented from gaining at least some excess weight ‚Äì thereby reducing their chances of future health problems ‚Äì by enlisting all community resources in giving kids the right food choices, better nutritional education, more opportunities to exercise and more approval and support for good lifestyle choices.  Working with Tufts, we‚Äôve already begun to extend these principles to programs designed to reach adults as well as children. As we expand and upgrade our networks of parks and playgrounds, establish programs like ‚ÄúFitness Buddies‚Äù for city employees and reach out to other community groups dedicated to making our city more walkable and bike-able, we‚Äôre working with Tufts every step of the way.

But Tufts‚Äô biggest commitment to our civic life may have come with this week‚Äôs announcement by President Bacow that the university will provide student loan payoff assistance to undergraduates who take on lower-paying public jobs when they graduate.  Some graduate schools, including Harvard‚Äôs John F. Kennedy School of Government, already offer similar programs to their graduates ‚Äì and I can tell you from experience in recruiting top-notch candidates for city government that it can make a crucial difference to a highly qualified college grad who leaves school burdened by a mountain of debt.

I therefore applaud Tufts for pioneering this type of initiative at the undergraduate level.  Our city ‚Äì and other communities across the nation ‚Äì will surely benefit.  As loans continue to edge out grants and scholarships as the primary source of financial aid to college students, the Tufts model will be increasingly important in maintaining our ability to recruit and retain highly qualified candidates for public-sector jobs. We already know that there are many students at Tufts who spend far more time volunteering in Somerville than they do carousing in the streets.  It‚Äôs nice to know that Tufts is working to reward the civic spirit of those students, even as it cracks down on the late-night rowdies ‚Äì and it‚Äôs another reason why, overall, Tufts is a very good neighbor.