page_title: Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Entrance to Goddard Hall, 1939, the Fletcher School
context_page_description: The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy is the graduate school of international affairs of Tufts University, in Medford, Massachusetts. Fletcher is well-ranked in its masters and doctoral international affairs programs. As of 2017, the student body numbered around 230, of whom 36 percent were international students from 70 countries, and around a quarter were U.S. minorities. The school's alumni network numbers over 9,500 in 160 countries, and includes ambassadors, diplomats, high ranking military officers, heads of nonprofit organizations, and corporate executives.
context_section_description: The Fletcher School was founded in 1933 with the bequest of Austin Barclay Fletcher, who left over $3 million to Tufts University upon his death in 1923. A third of these funds were dedicated to a school of law and diplomacy. Fletcher envisioned "a school to prepare men for the diplomatic service and to teach such matters as come within the scope of foreign relations [which] embraces within it as a fundamental and thorough knowledge of the principles of international law upon which diplomacy is founded, although the profession of a diplomat carries with it also a knowledge of many things of a geographic and economic nature which affect relations between nations."
  The school opened in 1933. One of the first buildings acquired was Goddard Hall which was converted into a library. Tufts assumed exclusive responsibility for the administration of The Fletcher School in 1935.
caption: Goddard Hall, 1939
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