July 26, 1999
Volume 51, No. 36

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CAMPUS NEWS Summer of planning and negotiation with neighbors continues for Emory West campus Emory Hospital and Crawford Long programs named some of 'America's Best' by U.S. News & World Report DOE grant to help electrify University Apartments deck New administrators for medical, dental and vision health care plans CIGNA, Aetna U. S. Healthcare and Oral Health Services will administer the employee health care plans for the University and Emory Hospitals, Emory Clinic and Wesley Woods. "Earlier this year, we conducted health care focus group meetings with our employees to gauge what they wanted in a health care program. Customer service and quality of care ranked at the top of the list, and we stressed this in the selection process," said Alice Miller, vice president for human resources. "With the national trend of rising health care costs, our primary goal was to contain costs without sacrificing quality or service. We found the best way to meet our employees' needs was to select individual vendors for each of our plans," she added. Aetna U.S. Healthcare will administer EmoryChoice, the HMO plan, and Emory-Care, the point-of-service (POS) plan, was awarded to CIGNA. Partnering with the Emory Eye Center, the University will offer a new vision plan. Oral Health Services will manage the DMO (network) and PDO dental plans. Employees can select health care coverage during open enrollment, Monday, Oct. 18, through Friday, Nov. 12. Additional details, including plan rates, will be announced as information becomes available in the coming months. HR policy revisions on its web site Human Resources has posted revisions to its Policies & Procedures manual to the HR web site, allowing supervisors and managers much more immediate access to changes in policy. You can access the materials at <www.emory.edu/HR/policies.html> and distribute revisions to supervisors and managers to replace current sections.

Wellness: Women's smoking connected to rise in cancer-related illness, death Refugee Diary, Part II: Bigger planeloads of Kosovar refugees make volunteers work even harder Lifestyle puts inner-city patients at risk for hepatitis C Exhibit traces origins of church debate on celibacy and gender CMDC offers new musical experiences for children MARTA drops plans for Lindbergh-Clifton line Emory's hopes for bringing a MARTA light rail line to campus took a big hit last week when the transportation authority announced it was dropping plans for any rail improvements in north and central DeKalb County. Spur lines to and from Emory figured in MARTA plans under consideration but were dropped in part because of negative public opinion. A story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said opponents of north DeKalb rail lines outnumbered supporters 50-1. "There was little or no public support for any of those lines," Jack Stephens, executive vice president of customer development for MARTA, said in the story. Perhaps not from the rest of the county, but Erick Gaither, senior associate vice president for business management, said the University recently submitted an 800-signature petition to MARTA supporting a line. Even though the entreaty went unheeded and Emory is "disappointed" that this Lindbergh-Clifton Corridor line will not materialize, Gaither still has hope. "We can't give up because traffic in Atlanta is not going to go away," he said. "Everyone agrees we need more public transportation; we just don't agree on where to put it. We'll continue to work with local officials to pursue transportation alternatives." One possibility, he said, is a rail line from Emory to Lindbergh and continuing to the former Atlantic Steel site, then to Georgia Tech and finally connecting with MARTA's west line. This plan would have the added benefit of linking by rail the two partners in the biotechnology incubator soon to open at Emory West, a venture heavily supported by the state.