When the Emory Campaign began five years ago, the School of Public Health had just moved from division to school status and was still located in a house on Gatewood Road. The campaign fund-raising goal for the school was set at $6 million, among the lower figures for schools across the University.
As the campaign ends, the picture is very different. With a commanding presence on Clifton Road, the Grace Crum Rollins Public Health Building seems to literally burst from the ground. When the newly-renamed Rollins School of Public Health moved into the building in January 1995, it tripled classroom and research space. But it is not a school unaccustomed to giant steps. In the five years since its inception, it has more than doubled its faculty size and course offerings, quadrupled the number of students in both the Master of Public Health and Ph.D. programs, and has more joint degree programs than any other school at Emory.
Mrs. Rollins, the benefactor whose name the building bears, and her family have long been involved with Emory's efforts toward advancing the quality of health education. Her family's gift of $10 million provided the School of Public Health with a new home; her husband, the late O. Wayne Rollins, donated $10 million to the construction of the Rollins Research Center, adjacent to the School of Public Health.
Its location on the Clifton Corridor gives the School of Public Health a distinct advantage -- with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Cancer Society almost next door, the opportunities for collaboration in research and programs are numerous. And the new building offers the school unprecedented opportunities to expand the base of its mission. For the first time, the school has laboratories of its own, especially designed for collaborative projects with other units of the University as well as with CDC and The Carter Center.
"When I look at the progress of the Rollins School of Public Health over the last five years, I am extremely grateful -- both to the faculty who have pushed for excellence in teaching and research, and to the Rollins family, for their vision and contributions to the school and to public health," said Dean James Curran. "Atlanta is often considered the public health capital of the world, and the Rollins School of Public Health is meeting the challenge to make Emory a central player."
-- Nancy M. Spitler