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Office of Admission Home >
A Virtual Tour of Emory University Atlanta Campus

Welcome to the main Atlanta campus of Emory University. It would take several days to see all the facilities on Emory’s 630-acre campus, given the presence of Emory College, the University’s seven professional schools, numerous research and healthcare facilities, libraries, computer labs, and recreational offerings. Nonetheless, we have created a walking tour that will give you a glimpse of life on campus. It should take you about an hour to complete.
Many of the facilities you will visit today have been constructed or renovated since 1979, with an eye to maintaining Emory’s traditional architectural style. As we continue to expand and improve our campus, we are leaving as much green space as possible as well as creating pedestrian-friendly walkways and gathering places for students, faculty, and staff.
Our tour begins at the Boisfeuillet (pronounced Bo-fill-lay) Jones Center (1), named for the late University alumnus, administrator and trustee who also held a top post in Washington during John F. Kennedy’s presidency. The center contains the offices of Admission, Financial Aid, Student Financial Services, and Student Records. The Admission office offers student-guided campus tours; call 404.727.6036 for a reservation.
Across the street is the Administration Building (2), which was constructed in 1955 and houses the Office of the President, the Office of the Provost, and other administrative offices. The building’s top floor caught fire on September 21, 1956, and then Hurricane Flossie swept through four days later, taking its own toll in water damage. Disaster-free for nearly half a century now, the building features the Henry L. Bowden Board Room, which contains oil paintings of past presidents and chairs of the University’s board of trustees.
Turning to the right and walking down the sidewalk toward Emory Village, you will find the Haygood-Hopkins Memorial Gateway (3), the symbolic and, at one time, physical main entrance to the campus.

Emory Icon: “The University’s Front Door”
The Haygood-Hopkins Memorial Gateway was completed in 1937 and is composed of two marble pillars connected by an ornate wrought-iron arch. At the center of the span is a lantern, which has become a symbol of the University and which appears on the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’ gonfalon, or cemeronial banner. As you face the gateway, the pillar on the left is dedicated to Atticus Greene Haygood, who graduated from Emory College in 1859. Known as a preacher and a philanthropist, Haygood served as president of Emory from 1875 to 1884. The opposite pillar is dedicated to Isaac Stiles Hopkins, also an 1859 graduate of Emory College. A minister as well as a teacher, Hopkins was president of Emory from 1884 to 1888. Following his tenure at Emory, he went on to be the founding president of the Georgia School of Technology (forerunner of the Georgia Institute of Technology). The gateway was a gift of Linton B. Robeson, a member of the Class of 1886, whose undergraduate years spanned the tenures of both Haygood and Hopkins.
Proceed up the walkway under the great oaks on the lawn of Glenn Memorial Church (4). Built in 1931, Glenn Memorial was a gift of Emory alumnus Charles Howard Candler, former chair of the board of trustees, and his wife, Flora Glenn Candler, in memory of Mrs. Candler’s father, Wilbur Fisk Glenn 1861C. For seven decades the building served variously as a church, an auditorium, a concert hall, and a theater. With its 1,250-seat capacity, Glenn is still used for regular church services and some campus events, although the advent of the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts relieved the building of many of its duties. Just behind the church, the Church School Building houses a preschool, Emory classrooms, offices, and the Little Chapel, a replica of Christopher Wren’s St. Stephen’s Walbrook in London.

Continue along the sidewalk up Fishburne Drive. On your left is Baker Woodlands (5), a ravine that once crossed the campus. Though overgrown and heavily wooded now, the ravine was the site for Commencement ceremonies for several years in the 1920s. By the 1980s, the ravine had grown thick with woods and was called Woolford B. Baker Woodlands in honor of a longtime professor of biology. Baker Woodlands is also home of the environmental sculpture Source Route by George Trakas.
The Rich Building (6), across Fishburne Drive from the Church School Building, was the first freestanding home of the business school; it now houses several departmental offices, including those for dance, theater, film studies and economics. Across from the Rich Building is Fishburne parking deck, the first of its kind on campus, built in the 1970s based on the optimistic assumption that it would serve all the University’s parking needs for the next thirty years.

Walk up the hill from the Rich Building, past Fishburne parking deck on your right, and you will see the Donna and Marvin Schwartz Center for Performing Arts (7). Completed in 2003, the Schwartz Center is the long-awaited answer to the need for a unified space for the arts at Emory. It houses the renowned 825-seat Emerson Concert Hall, a dance studio, theater lab, multiple classrooms, and rehearsal spaces.
Beyond the Schwartz Center lies Goizueta Business School (8), completed in 1997 and named for the late Roberto C. Goizueta, former chair and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company and a trustee of Emory. The business school offers undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees as well as executive education. Across the street, construction of the Goizueta Foundation Center for Research and Doctoral Education is scheduled to be completed in 2005.

Now turn and walk back down the hill, take a right in front of the Rich Building, and cross Mizell Bridge toward the Michael C. Carlos Museum. Take an immediate right and continue up the slope to Woodruff Library (9), the University’s central library, home of the busy Information Commons. The tenth floor, which offers an aerial view of campus, houses Emory’s Special Collections of rare books and manuscripts as well as the University Archives. Emory’s five libraries contain more than 2.65 million volumes.
Access to Woodruff Library is usually restricted to students, faculty, and staff; when you enter, let the attendant know you are a campus visitor and would like to look around. After seeing the library, go up to the “BR” floor to the enclosed bridge, which will take you across to Candler Library (10). Originally completed in 1926 and named for Asa Griggs Candler, donor of the land for the early Druid Hills campus, Candler Library was Emory’s first freestanding library and was highly praised for its beauty and design. The offices of Emory College are here as well as the offices of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. As you exit the library, take note of the magnificent 21-panel frieze encircling the entrance area, a replica of Danish sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen’s “The Triumphal Entry of Alexander Into Babylon.”

Leave the Reading Room through the main doors, descend the massive staircase of recycled marble, and open the doors of Candler Library to face the Quadrangle (11), the heart of Emory, where Commencement is held with great fanfare each May. The rolling hills of Georgia’s piedmont reminded Emory’s original architect, Henry Hornbostel, of northern Italy, so the Quadrangle buildings were constructed in the Italian Renaissance style out of pink and gray Georgia marble.
To your right you will see the Loula Walker and Ely Reeves Callaway Sr. Memorial Center (12), named for the parents of Emory alumnus Ely Callaway of Callaway Wine and Callaway Golf fame. Built in 1919 as the physics and chemistry buildings, the center now provides offices and classrooms for several departments in the humanities, including classics, English, foreign languages, religion, and women’s studies.

Directly across the Quad from the Callaway building is Henry Bowden Hall (13), named for the longtime chair of Emory’s board of trustees. Bowden prepared and argued the case for the first African American student to be admitted to Emory in 1962. The building now houses the history and philosophy departments.
Facing Bowden Hall, take a right and you will come to the Michael C. Carlos Museum (14) and Carlos Hall (15). Renowned architect Michael Graves designed the interior renovation of Carlos Hall, which was originally the School of Law and now houses the Department of Art History and portions of the museum. The main museum building, also designed by Graves, showcases a distinguished collection of ancient art and archaeological objects from Egypt and Nubia, the Near East, the Americas, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, as well as classical artifacts from Greek and Roman sites and special exhibits from some of the world’s great museums. If you want to take a break at this point, the museum’s Caffè Antico on the third floor is a great place to have a bite to eat.

Exit the Carlos Museum and take the sidewalk that crosses the Quad. Walk past the flagpole and in front of you is Cannon Chapel (16). Designed by architect Paul Rudolph (whose father, Keener, was a member of Candler School of Theology’s first graduating class in 1915), it is the site of weekly religious services. The University has been affiliated with the Methodist Church since Emory College’s founding in 1836. Today, students from many religious backgrounds practice their faiths on campus. Feel free to go inside.
After viewing the interior, return to the Quad, turn right, and stroll down the sidewalk to Pitts Theology Library (17). Built in 1916, the Pitts library is one of the three buildings on the Quadrangle designed by Hornbostel. In 1975 its chapel was converted to a reading room to accommodate Emory’s acquisition of Hartford Theological Library’s 220,000 volumes. The Pitts library houses North America’s foremost collection of Martin Luther’s early printed works and German Reformation materials.

Continue past the Pitts Library and on your right is White Hall (18), named for alumnus and former Emory President Goodrich C. White. This is one of the primary classroom buildings for Emory College’s 4,500 undergraduates.
Across the street from White Hall is the Mathematics and Science Center (19), completed in 2002. This innovative facility houses the computer science, environmental science, mathematics, and physics departments, as well as a planetarium and a research-grade rooftop telescope. The center was designed using “green” building principles, incorporating energy and water conservation and recycling.

Emory Icon: “Defying Gravity”
The
Gravity Monument, a campus curiosity since it was placed beside the old
Physics Building in 1963, now sits in the courtyard of the Mathematics
and Science Center. Rough-cut from Etowah Cherokee pink marble, the five-foot-high
monument was given to Emory in 1962 by the Gravity Research Foundation
of New Hampshire. The monument was accompanied by a $5,000 grant to Emory's
physics department and soon became a quirky landmark.
Across the street from the Math and Science Center and to your left is Cherry Logan Emerson Hall (20), completed in 2001 and named for the Emory benefactor and chemistry alumnus. Through careful design, Emerson Hall blends contemporary windows and gray columns with Emory’s trademark marble and red tile roof to serve as an architectural bridge between modern and traditional styles. Also at this juncture is the Sanford S. Atwood Chemistry Center (21), named for the former University president and home to the department of chemistry and its labs, classrooms, and library.

Emory Icon: The Wave
The Wave—a large, faded, maroon sculpture—stood for more than twenty years in the lush green patch of grass between the Administration Building and White Hall, but recently was moved to a space between White Hall and the Atwood Chemistry Center. The metal sculpture, which has been described as a ship’s sail and a shark’s tooth, is hollow—a rap on its surface produces a deep, gonglike sound. The weathered surface is beginning to show its age; the paint has blistered in several places, and rust has begun to form on the bare spots. The work was created by artist Jim Clover and is on long-term loan from the Heath Gallery in Atlanta.
Now go into White Hall, walk straight through the building, and exit the far doors. Take the brick plaza walkway between the Psychology Building and Cannon Chapel, making a left at the bridge in front of Callaway. Take an immediate right and you will see the Anthropology Building on your left and, to your right, the blue Whisper Chair, a remnant of the Chairs Project of spring 2003, when artists were commissioned to create an array of interpretive chairs to honor the opening of the Schwartz Center. Several of the chairs remain, and you may discover them scattered across campus.
Continue down the walkway until you come to Asbury Circle. Look across the street to your right and you will find Cox Hall (22), named for Harvey W. Cox, the University’s first president. The Cox food court is one of the primary dining spots on campus: you will often find medical students in scrubs eating here between rounds at Emory University Hospital next door. Cox’s second floor houses an ultramodern computer lab whose plush design puts all harshly lit, utilitarian computer labs to shame.

Emory Icon: The Calhoun Oak
A giant white oak more than a century old stands majestically in the grass about twenty yards in front of the main entrance to Emory University Hospital. During the mid-1940s, the hospital expanded, and construction plans included cutting down a number of big trees, including the white oak. However, when F. Phinizy Calhoun Sr. ’04M-’54H, who recently had retired as chair of the Department of Ophthalmology after three decades, learned the trees were scheduled to go on the chopping block, he decided to intervene. An Emory benefactor and longtime trustee who in 1922 performed the first operation at Emory Hospital, Calhoun served on the board’s buildings and grounds committee. Calhoun met with members of the board of trustees and hospital executives to plead his case on behalf of the trees, and he eventually prevailed. In fall 1964, when Calhoun was in his eighties, the great old oak was dedicated in his honor.
To the left of Cox Hall, you will see the R. Howard Dobbs University Center (23), a central gathering place commonly known as “the DUC.” The building is a perfect example of Emory’s blending of old and new, with a 1986 addition attached to the original façade of the old student center, still visible in the busy Coca-Cola Commons. The DUC houses a cafeteria, the main Emory bookstore, banking service, the University Post Office, Mary Gray Munroe Theater, Harland Cinema, a game room, the Office of Campus Life, and offices for many student organizations.

Across Asbury Circle from the DUC, Dobbs Hall (24), completed in 1916 as the first dormitory on campus, is still prized by students due to its prime location—roll out of bed and you can still make your freshman English class in five minutes. Next door, the George W. Woodruff Physical Education Center (25), or “WoodPEC,” is a spot where community members (including 80 percent of Emory students) come to work out, take physical education classes, and participate in all manner of sports both competitive and recreational. Visitors should tell the attendant they are touring the campus and would like to look around. The WoodPEC offers a basketball court, racquetball courts, dance studio, cardiotheater, indoor track, rock-climbing walls, Olympic-size pool, weight machines and free weights, tennis courts, and outdoor track. For the last several years, Emory has finished in the top 10 nationally in the NACDA Directors’ Cup standings for best all-around athletics program in NCAA Division III.
If you have more time, please head north to the Depot and Lullwater.

Emory Icon: “Emory, Georgia”
The Depot was constructed in 1916 as a station for the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Until 1947 the official name of the station was “Emory, Georgia.” That year it was changed to “Emory University” to reflect better its ties to the school. At one time, travelers could board the Silver Comet at Emory’s small-town station and get off in the bustling megalopolis of New York City without ever having to switch trains. In 1955 Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor immortalized the station as a location in a short story. Passenger service from the depot was discontinued in fall 1969, and the following year parcel service was stopped. For a short time, the long, narrow, red brick building was used as a student art gallery; then in 1972 it was converted into the Emory Employees Federal Credit Union. At one time, rumors circulated that the station would be turned into an English pub, but in 1982 the building became The Depot restaurant.
Emory Icon: The Presidential Residence
Built in the 1920s by Walter T. Candler, son of Emory benefactor and Coca-Cola founder Asa G. Candler, Lullwater House was constructed in the English Tudor style. The house, which has served as the home of Emory University’s presidents since 1963, is the centerpiece of Lullwater, a 185-acre park used by Emory community members for relaxation, exercise, and informal events. The entrance to Lullwater is located on Clifton Road next to the Woodruff Residential Center. Motorized vehicles are not permitted in Lullwater.

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