The sight of reporters, secret service agents and Cabinet officers on campus March 29 for an economic summit will ensure that 1995 will remain a memorable year for the Emory community. In addition to the visit by President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, 1995 saw many significant events in the life of the University, including those listed here:
The Atlanta Project (TAP) moves to the national level with the launching of The America Project. The new initiative is born in an effort to disseminate information about TAP to other cities to increase the number of and improve the effectiveness of partnerships between the private sector and low-income community groups across the country.
Thanks to the King National Holiday community service project, approximately 30 Emory community members spend the holiday sprucing up and organizing a warehouse in the Summerhill neighborhood used by several non-profit agencies. The event was the first of its kind in the history of Emory's annual observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Week.
More than 100 black students and 50 administrators gather for a three-hour discussion of black student concerns. The event was a follow-up session to the initial Black Student Summit held in April 1994 in which black students brought their concerns to the administration.
In an ongoing effort to relieve traffic congestion in the Emory area, MARTA begins operating an express shuttle service between the Kensington and Lindbergh rail stations. The shuttle makes stops only along the Clifton Corridor.
Civil rights advocate Jesse Jackson discusses "Reclaiming Our Youth: At Home, in Schools and Communities" as the keynote speaker for Emory's observance of Black History Month. In his address, which inaugurated a new Emory program to help economically disadvantaged children in urban areas envision brighter futures for themselves, Jackson praised Emory's efforts to go beyond merely teaching in a multicultural setting to the more challenging task of teaching multicultural living.
The University dedicates the Grace Crum Rollins Public Health Building on Clifton Road, which provides a new home for the Rollins School of Public Health. Longtime benefactors of the University, the Rollins family contributed $10 million toward construction of the 10-story building.
President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore host a regional economic summit in Cannon Chapel. A group of 200 business and community leaders, in addition to several Clinton cabinet members, attend as participants. Following the summit, Clinton addresses a crowd of more than 4,000 at a rally in the P.E. Center.
President Bill Chace announces the change of the President's Committee on Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual Concerns to the status of presidential commission, giving the new L/G/B Commission equivalent standing with the President's Commission on the Status of Women and the President's Commission on the Status of Minorities.
The University dedicates Chappell Park, a new baseball facility on Peavine Creek Drive. Made possible by a donation from Robert Chappell Jr., the park has permanent seating for 250 and temporary seating for approximately 1,000.
Approximately 2,000 people converge on the quadrangle to watch the inauguration ceremonies for President Bill Chace. In honor of the inauguration, a Habitat for Humanity house built by Emory community volunteers is dedicated several days prior to the inauguration.
After several months of often contentious debate, the University Senate votes not to amend the University's seven-year-old Discriminatory Harassment Policy. Charging that the policy was overly restrictive of individual and academic freedom, the Student Government Association had proposed amending the policy the previous fall.
The Association of American Universities votes to extend membership to Emory. The organization consists of the 60 most productive and accomplished research universities in the United States.
Commencement speaker Henry Louis Gates Jr., chair of Afro American Studies at Harvard, exhorts the nearly 3,000 members of the Class of 1995 to reconceptualize their familiar images of adulthood.
Longtime chief of the Emory Police Department Ed Medlin leaves Emory to become director of security for the B'hai community in Israel. Medlin is replaced by Craig Watson, a 17-year veteran of the department, which joined the former parking office under the new Department of Community Services in May. Erick Gaither is named director of the department.
A little more than a year after the issue is first proposed, the Board of Trustees votes to extend dependent benefits to the same sex partners of faculty and staff. The action makes it possible for employees' same sex partners to enroll in the benefits program in November 1995.
The Freshman Seminar program begins with a newly added intellectual component. The new program calls for seminar leaders to select a text for freshmen to read and to devote several weekly seminar sessions to discussion of the text.
Donald Stein, former dean of the Graduate School and associate provost for research at Rutgers University, becomes dean of Emory's Graduate School. Also appointed professor of psychology, Stein is an active research scientist in the area of recovery from brain injury.
His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, the exiled spiritual and temporal leader of the people of Tibet, addresses an Emory audience, urging all Americans to live lives of peace and help bring freedom to Tibet, which was invaded by China in 1949.
U.S. News & World Report ranks Emory 17th in the nation in its annual overall college quality rankings. Emory is ranked 13th in its commitment to undergraduate teaching.
Hugh F. MacMillan '34L, 85, dies of complications from a stroke as the new $12-million MacMillan Law Library opens. MacMillan gave $2.3 million toward construction of the library.
The Emory Law and Religion Program announces that it has assumed direction of the Religion and Human Rights Project, previously housed at Human Rights Watch in New York. Law school faculty members Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, John Witte and Johan van der Vyver are named co-directors of the program.
The University closes the morning of Oct. 5 after a metro-wide power outage resulting from high winds from Hurricane Opal. About 100 trees are lost in the Yerkes/Lullwater area, while Oxford College's quadrangle loses several older trees.
Author James Dickey reads from his works at the opening of The James Dickey Papers in the Special Collections Department of Woodruff Library. Dickey says he is both "exalted and appalled at the mountain of stuff they have" in the collection.
A number of Emory community members express opposition to the campus appearance of former Reagan Administration official Dinesh D'Souza, who discusses his book, The End of Racism: Principles for a Multicultural Society. Concerns about racist attitudes in D'Souza's book were raised at a panel discussion of students and faculty after the address.
Nestled in the hardwood forest off Houston Mill Road, the Conference Center Hotel opens for use by the Emory community. The facility features 198 guest rooms, 20,000 square feet of meeting space, 72-seat and 200-seat auditoriums and a 40-seat dining room.
The Graduate Division of Religion is ranked fifth in the nation in a four-year study of research-doctorate programs by the National Research Council. Graduate religion programs at the University of Chicago, Harvard, Princeton and Duke are ranked first through fourth, respectively.
James W. Curran, an internationally recognized expert in AIDS prevention, begins his tenure as dean of the School of Public Health. Curran formerly was assistant surgeon general in the U.S. Public Health Service and acting director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the CDC.
After nearly three years of planning, the establishment of an Asian Studies Program is announced by Emory College Dean David Bright. Paul Courtright, chair of the religion department, is appointed director of the program.
Final connections are completed for a project known as ResNet, which includes wiring for Ethernet and cable television connections for all Emory residence halls. Begun in the summer, the project provides each residence hall room with access to 27 satellite networks, nine Atlanta networks and two campus stations as well as to the campus computer network via a high-speed Ethernet connection.
The renovation of Oxford College's Fleming L. Jolley Residential Center, uniting four residence halls into one complex, is completed. Fleming L. Jolley, a 1943 Oxford graduate and a 1947 medical school graduate, donated $1.1 million for the renovation project, which provided a facelift for Oxford's four oldest residence halls.
Compiled by Dan Treadaway