Helping Tomorrow’s Leaders

A  Tufts education transformed David Sloan’s life. Now Sloan, A74, F76, is helping future students experience the same advantages he’s enjoyed.

A regular donor to The Fletcher School and the School of Arts and Sciences, Sloan recently increased the gifts he had included in his estate plans to make an even larger impact.

 “My education and friendships from Fletcher have been the most important force in my professional life, and in some cases my personal life,” he said. “I think all of us have a responsibility to support education.”

Inspired by his longstanding ties to South Asia, Sloan had previously included a gift in his trust to establish a scholarship to help students from the region study at Fletcher. When he recently updated his estate plans, he added to his gift for the David M. Sloan Endowed Scholarship Fund at Fletcher and also provided a gift for financial aid at the School of Arts and Sciences, where he earned a degree in political science.

“For South Asian students to attend any university in the United States is hugely expensive,” he said. “To the extent that I can encourage the best students to study at Fletcher, and at Tufts more broadly, I want to make it financially possible for them.”

A principal with the Scowcroft Group and former Asia practice head for the Eurasia Group, Sloan has devoted decades of his career to helping global corporations and other investors assess risk in the South Asian market. He was inspired to attend Fletcher after taking undergraduate classes in political science with then-assistant professor Robert Legvold, F63, F67, “the most outstanding teacher I ever had.”

Sloan served as Fletcher’s student representative to the Tufts Board of Trustees Executive Committee from 1975 to 1976, and the university has remained central to his life. In 1986, a Fletcher connection helped him land his first consulting job after leaving the Foreign Service, and he often mentors younger graduates.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t talk, email, or text with my Fletcher friends,” he said.

Sloan encourages his peers to consider including gifts in their estate plans for financial aid, to broaden access to a superb education that prepares future global leaders. “Each of us has to step up and do what we can to help.”