Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. The university is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts. The university emphasizes active citizenship and public service in all of its disciplines more than any peer school and is well known for its internationalism and study abroad programs. Among its schools is the United States' oldest graduate school of international relations, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

In 1852, Tufts College was founded by Christian Universalists who worked for years to open a non-sectarian institution of higher learning.Charles Tufts donated the land for the campus on Walnut Hill, the highest point in Medford, saying that he wanted to set a "light on the hill." The name was changed to Tufts University in 1954, although the corporate name remains "the Trustees of Tufts College." After more than a century, Tufts was a small New England liberal arts college. The French-American nutritionist Jean Mayer became president of Tufts in the late 1970s and, through a series of mergers with other institutions, transformed the school into an internationally renowned research university. It consistently ranks among the country's best colleges.

Mikheil Saakashvili (Georgian: მიხეილ სააკაშვილი, IPA: [mixɛil saakʼaʃvili]; born 21 December 1967) is a Georgian politician, the third and current President of Georgia and leader of the United National Movement Party.

Involved in national politics since 1995, he became president on 25 January 2004 after President Eduard Shevardnadze resigned in a November 2003 bloodless "Rose Revolution" led by Saakashvili and his political allies, Nino Burjanadze and Zurab Zhvania. He was re-elected in the Georgian presidential election on 5 January 2008. He is widely regarded as a pro-NATO and pro-USA leader who spearheaded a series of political and economic reforms. In 2010, he had a 67% approval rating despite being criticized by the opposition for his alleged authoritarian tendencies and electoral fraud.

Some non-Georgian sources spell Saakashvili's first name via the Russian version of the name Mikhail. In Georgia, he is commonly known as "Misha," a hypocorism for Mikheil.

Mikheil Saakashvili was born in Tbilisi, capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet Union, to a Georgian intelligentsia family. His father, Nikoloz Saakashvili, is a physician who practices medicine in Tbilisi and directs a local Balneological Center. His mother, Giuli Alasania, is a historian who lectures at Tbilisi State University.