By Marc Chalufour
Robert Rotberg and his family have deep roots at Tufts. His late wife, Joanna Rotberg, AG68, AG94P, FG01P, earned a master’s degree in education from the School of Arts & Sciences. Their youngest daughter, Fiona Rotberg, AG94, FG01, earned a master’s degree in urban and environmental policy and a Ph.D. in international relations. And Rotberg, AG94P, FG01P, served as academic vice president at Tufts from 1987 to 1990.
His ties even go back to one of Tufts’ earliest graduates: Edwin Ginn, Class of 1862. For 17 years, Rotberg led the World Peace Foundation, which Ginn founded in 1910 to promote nonviolence through research. Rotberg was president of the organization from 1993 to 2010, when it was located at Harvard University. (It moved to The Fletcher School in 2011.) In 2007, he published the biography A Leadership for Peace: How Edwin Ginn Tried to Save the World.
Inspired by this history and what he considers a vital role for libraries in the era of artificial intelligence, Rotberg recently provided a generous gift to ensure the long-term strength of the Edwin Ginn Library at The Fletcher School. The donation combines immediate, annual support with a planned gift that endows the Robert I. Rotberg Family Director position.
“What librarians do and what they create are fundamental to learning,” Rotberg said. “The written word inscribed in books cannot be replaced by Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT, now or in the future. Thus, there is a need to recognize and honor the institution of the library and its director.”
The Ginn Library supports graduate-level and faculty research and teaching. The collection includes more than 120,000 volumes, periodicals, and documents from the United Nations, League of Nations, and other international organizations. It also includes Rotberg’s personal collection, which he donated in 2025.
“I’ve been an academic since 1960 and was a Ph.D. student and an undergraduate before that, and I’ve written a few books,” said Rotberg. In addition to his biography of Ginn, Rotberg has written or edited books on political leadership, peacekeeping, humanitarian crises, and many other topics. “The resources of libraries have always been critical to me,” he said.
“The Edwin Ginn Library has a wonderful history, but I think Bob’s gift is very much about its future. It allows us to think ambitiously about what a library at a school of international affairs should be,” said Ellen McDonald, the first Robert I. Rotberg Family Director. “It recognizes a library as something living. It is people, expertise, relationships, ideas, and a willingness to keep changing along with the institution it serves. I am deeply grateful to him for having the foresight to invest in that future.”