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January 14, 2002
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2001: Year in Review Compiled by Michael Terrazas mterraz@emory.edu
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2001 will forever be remembered as the year when terrorism changed the world. But even though ‘Sept. 11’ will always stand alone in a dateline, there were 364 other days last year that also brought their share of memories. Emory Report looks back at the year that was 2001...
JANUARY After 11 years at the helm of the School of Law, Dean Woody Hunter announces
he will resign as dean, effective June 30. He does not plan to retire,
however, and will remain on the law school faculty. "I took over
[as interim dean] in May 1989 somewhat reluctantly, with the intention
to serve only a few months, until a permanent dean could take over,"
Hunter says. "One thing led to another, and suddenly it is almost
12 years later. Frankly, I found the job to be both interesting and challenging.
I have enjoyed the work." Its walls may be bare and the hallways may still smell of fresh paint,
but the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing’s new home at 1520
Clifton Road begins the new year open for business. Though there is much
moving and settling in yet to be done, the school is ready for classes
when the students return Jan. 17. Carter, U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and renowned Harvard naturalist
E.O. Wilson headline the symposium, which by all accounts is a resounding
success. Crowd turnout is impressive; Carter speaks to a capacity gathering
in Glenn, and people stand in the aisles for Wilson’s closing-day
address in WHSCAB Auditorium, which also was near capacity for Lewis’
speech the day before. The event culminates in a closing plenary that features President Bill
Chace, Provost Rebecca Chopp, Executive Vice President for Health Sciences
Michael Johns and the University’s nine deans, as they grapple with
the question of what the symposium means for Emory and its future. Emory College Dean Steve Sanderson announces he is leaving the University
in June to become president of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation
Society (WCS), one of the oldest and most prestigious conservation organizations
in the United States. Sanderson’s resignation marks the end of a four-year deanship that
has witnessed tremendous growth in the college’s international programs,
as well as programmatic and physical growth in both the arts and the natural
sciences.
FEBRUARY The Miller-Ward Alumni House plays host for the first time to the 2001
Unsung Heroine Awards, sponsored by the Women’s Center. This year’s
four honorees are Aida Sued-Dominquez (undergraduate), Shirley Banks (staff),
Brenda Bynum (faculty), and Beth Sufian ’87C, the first-ever alumna
recipient. Veteran television journalist Steen Miles serves as guest speaker
for the event. With the concept of reconciliation dominating Emory’s consciousness in 2000–01, it is highly appropriate that Charles Villa-Vicencio, a leading South African theologian and professor, deliver the Law and Religion Program’s annual Currie Lecture, Feb. 27 in Tull Auditorium. Villa-Vicencio speaks for 45 minutes on "Church, State and Restorative Justice: Did the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Succeed in South Africa?"
MARCH The Scots-Irish have been one of the largest and mostinfluential ethnic
groups in the American South, but few Americans know much, if anything,
about that heritage. "Ulster Roots/Southern Branches," a one-day
symposium cosponsored by Emory, the W.B. Yeats Foundation and the University
of Ulster in Northern Ireland, looks to provide some of the answers through
scholarly discussion and artistic performances. The event is held March
3 on the Emory campus. Molecular biology was never so easy on the eyes. Emory’s faculty
and students turn Woodruff Library’s Schatten Gallery into a testament
to the aesthetics of discovery—and to the science of beauty—for
three months, as "Science and Art: Shared Frontiers" fills the
space through May 31. The exhibit encompasses the work of more than 30
individuals who accepted the broad charge of blending science and art
through more than 100 works of art in an impressive array of media: images
of microscopy, sculptures of wood and of steel, multimedia pieces displayed
on iMac computers, paintings, photographs and much more. After an extensive opinion-gathering effort not only within the University
but in the Atlanta community, President Bill Chace decides Emory will
sponsor an exhibition of graphic lynching photographs and postcards sometime
in 2002. Chace had appointed a committee of faculty, students and staff
to hold public forums so people could air their opinions. The committee
made its recommendation in December 2000, and Chace announces his decision
just before spring break. Provost Rebecca Chopp announces she is leaving Emory to become dean of
Yale Divinity School. During her four-year tenure as provost, Chopp worked
to articulate Emory’s intellectual vision. She initiated a number
of conversations with the faculty about the nature and structures of Emory’s
intellectual life, including explorations of teaching and research, and
encouraged a vision of the graduate school as the preeminent scholarly
center of Emory. Deciding that the best time to make major changes is in a time of major change, Emory’s top leadership creates a new executive position charged with overseeing the Arts and Sciences (A&S) faculty in both Emory College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Bobby Paul, who had begun his tenure as dean of the graduate school in September 2000, is appointed executive vice provost of Arts and Sciences, effective June 1.
APRIL Emory’s medical and business schools are among the Top 25 schools
in America, according to the U.S. News & World Report "America’s
Best Graduate School" guide for 2002, reported in the magazine’s
April 9 issue. The School of Medicine ranks 22nd among research-oriented medical schools
and 41st among primary-care-oriented schools. The Goizueta Business School’s
MBA program ranks 23rd, and its executive MBA program places 10th. The
School of Law ranks 27th, and its trial advocacy program ranks ninth.
In other ratings new this year, Emory’s graduate programs in history
and clinical psychology both rank 25th. Three new student religious ministries are recognized at Emory, bringing
to 30 the number of religious organizations and ministries at the University.
Student interest in faith-based groups has been growing for several years,
according to Susan Henry-Crowe, dean of the chapel and religious life.
The Reformed University Fellowship (RUF), the Universal Fellowship of
Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC) and an interdenominational ministry
for African Americans are now among the official religious groups available
to students on campus. In a break with tradition, it is announced that each of the University’s
four honorary degree recipients will speak at Commencement in May. Palestinian
Catholic priest Elias Chacour, former Emory Board of Trustees chair Bradley
Currey, South African justice Richard Goldstone and journalist Charlayne
Hunter-Gault will each receive an honorary degree and deliver a brief
address. For more than four hours on April 5, Emory rules the world. About 70
Emory students, staff and faculty traipse around the globe—a large
map of it on the Cox Hall floor, anyway—taking part in the World
Issues Workshop. They assume roles as world leaders and representatives
of nongovernment organizations, and role-play their way to solving the
world’s problems through negotiation, diplomacy and inventive thinking. Two days after Emory students, faculty and staff try their hand at ruling
the world in the World Issues Workshop (see above), thousands more convene
on the Quad with the more modest goal of simply watching—or tasting—just
a piece of it at the 25th annual International Cultural Festival, themed
"Crossroads of the World," held April 7. During a meeting held April 11, the faculty of Emory College passes a
resolution requesting the University administration to rescind its recent
creation of the position of executive vice provost for arts and sciences.
Roughly 300 faculty members attend the meeting. Harvey Klehr, Mellon Professor
of Politics and History, introduces the resolution, which objected to
a perceived lack of faculty input into the administration’s decision. The official debut of Cherry Logan Emerson Hall on April 17 draws a standing-room-only
crowd. Emerson takes the podium to cap a list of speakers that includes
President Bill Chace, Senior Associate Dean of Emory College Rosemary
Magee and chemistry Professor David Goldsmith. Chancellor Billy Frye decides it is both his choice and his responsibility
to conclude his distinguished career in academia and administration—including
15 years at Emory—by retiring at the end of May. Since coming to
Emory in 1986 as vice president of research and dean of the Graduate School
of Arts and Sciences, Frye also served as the University’s first
provost and its interim president. After Bill Chace assumed the presidency
in 1994, Frye returned to the provost’s office for three years before
becoming Emory’s fourth chancellor in 1997. President Bill Chace announces that Deborah Lipstadt, Dorot Professor
of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies and director of the Institute for
Jewish Studies, will speak at Commencement as the Class of 2001 speaker.
Some students had expressed dissatisfaction with the University’s
decision to have its four honorary degree recipients deliver brief Commencement
addresses. Responding to faculty concerns, President Bill Chace withdraws the creation
of the executive vice provostship for Arts and Sciences and the appointment
of Graduate School Dean Bobby Paul to the position. Chace, Provost Rebecca
Chopp and interim Provost-designate Woody Hunter distribute a letter to
faculty members of the College Executive Committee announcing the decision.
"We deeply regret any confusion or misunderstanding that may have
been created by the earlier announced appointment," the letter stated. After many months of planning by the Goizueta Business School, Knowledge@Emory, a comprehensive online publication featuring in-depth articles on the newest business trends and the latest research, makes its web debut. The site is modeled after the University of Pennsylvania business school’s e-zine, Knowledge@Wharton, which launched in 1999. The two schools shared in the effort to create Knowledge@Emory. Past, present and perhaps future generations of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) gather Thursday, April 26, to celebrate the group’s 25th anniversary. Founding members of the Women’s Caucus (PCSW’s predecessor) mingle with daughters of current PCSW members at the celebration. The centerpiece is a "Herstory" timeline documenting the evolution of women’s rights at Emory and nationally.
MAY The Pitts Theology Library celebrates the acquisition of its 500,000th
volume with a ceremony that includes two guest speakers, May 1, in the
library’s Durham Reading Room. Dennis Norlin of the American Theological
Library Association and Randy Maddox, professor of Wesleyan theology at
Seattle Pacific University, join Candler School of Theology Dean Russell
Richey and Pat Graham, director of the Pitts Library, at the podium to
commemorate the occasion. Meanwhile at Oxford, alumnus and San Francisco Chronicle science writer Keay Davidson ’73Ox, ’75C delivers the main address at Oxford’s Commencement ceremony. "Hey folks," an off-the-cuff Davidson greets the assembled crowd on a brilliant Saturday morning. "I was never much of a student, but I love this hat," he says, taking off and examining the cap he wears atop his ceremonial graduation gown. "It makes me look like Groucho Marx."
JUNE Graduate School Dean Bobby Paul is appointed interim dean of Emory College
for a term of two years, President Bill Chace announces in an e-mail to
faculty in late May. Paul is on leave from his post as dean of the graduate
school. Gary Wihl, associate dean and professor of English, is named acting
graduate school dean during the two years Paul will be on leave. The word
comes out: Emory is an excellent place to work. That’s the consensus
drawn from a series of focus groups sponsored by Human Resources and led
by an outside consultant earlier in the year. Statistics show that Emory
employees are quite happy. A large majority of those polled—73 percent—rate
their level of job satisfaction as "good" or "very good."
An even higher percentage—82 percent—rate their overall satisfaction
with Emory as an employer as "good" or "very good." In the latest round of Emory’s ongoing quest to bring commuter rail
transit to campus, the University throws its support behind a new proposal
that would link it via light rail to the Lindbergh MARTA Station, with
the line continuing to the Atlanta University Center, then turning east
again to DeKalb County along I-20. U.S. Reps. John Lewis and Cynthia McKinney
(D-Ga.) ask the federal Department of Transportation for $2 million to
fund a feasibility study of the arc-shaped route, and a cadre of greater
Atlanta businesses, universities and other organizations express enthusiasm
for the idea. Emory’s extensive organ transplantation programs take a giant step forward with the creation of the Andrew McKelvey Lung Transplantation Center. The center is made possible through a $20 million gift from Andrew McKelvey, founder and CEO of TMP Worldwide, and also funds the creation of the Augustus J. McKelvey Chair in Lung Transplantation Medicine, in honor of his late father. The first chairholder is Clinton Lawrence, professor of medicine and medical director of lung transplantation. Lawrence also will direct the McKelvey Lung Transplantation Center. JULY Pulitzer Prize-winning author E. Annie Proulx is the focus of the 2001
Emory Creative Writing Program’s Summer Writers’ Festival. Proulx,
who received the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1994 for
The Shipping News, reads from her work, discusses her techniques
and teaches a master class during the July 26–27 festival, held in
conjunction with the Emory Summer Writers’ Institute that runs July
3–Aug. 9. U.S. News & World Report names Emory Hospital one of America’s
best hospitals in five medical specialties: cardiology (ninth), ophthalmology
(ninth), kidney disease (18th), gynecology (40th) and urology (41st).
The ninth-ranked cardiology program has been recognized as one of the
top 10 U.S. programs since the magazine began ranking hospitals in 1990;
the eye program has made the top 10 for the past three years. Emory is
the only Georgia hospital this year to be ranked in the top 10 in either
specialty. Boisfeuillet Jones, the man whose name graces Emory’s Boisfeuillet
Jones Center, dies July 18. He had recently fallen at his Atlanta home
and slipped into a coma. He was 88. "Boisfeuillet Jones was a great
citizen of Atlanta and an extraordinary participant in the life of Emory
University," says President Bill Chace. "His seven decades of
association with Emory—as an exemplary student, innovative administrator,
and wise trustee—have made Emory a far better place. Our community
has been immeasurably blessed by his ironic spirit, and we will miss him."
To honor Jones, University flags fly at half-mast July 19–20. Emory’s new Jane Fonda Center, funded through a $2 million gift from the actor to the School of Medicine, officially opens July 19 in a ceremony held at the Briarcliff Campus. The goal of the center is to advance scientific knowledge about infancy, childhood and adolescence, and to disseminate new information and strategies for risk reduction and healthy transitions to adulthood. In addition, Fonda’s gift will endow the Marion Howard Chair in Adolescent Reproductive Health in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, named for Associate Professor Marion Howard, who will be the first chair holder.
AUGUST It’s official: Emory’s hot, as it is one of nine universities
named "Hot Schools" by the Kaplan/Newsweek special publication
How to Get Into College, which hit newsstands Aug. 13. The educational
and career services company and the news magazine team each year to produce
the publication, which features in-depth articles on many aspects of the
college experience. Carlos Museum Director Tony Hirschel announces Aug. 14 that he is leaving
Emory in November to become director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art
(IMA), that city’s largest public art museum. Hirschel, who came
to the Carlos as director in 1997, says the decision to leave was "extremely
difficult," but the opportunity to lead an institution with an annual
budget many times that of the Carlos is one he couldn’t pass up.
He said the closest equivalent to the IMA in Atlanta is the High Museum. Emory’s Vaccine Research Center opens the country’s first facility
dedicated solely to testing vaccines in clinical trials. Called The Hope
Clinic, the 3,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility in downtown Decatur
will coordinate human clinical trials of vaccines for AIDS and other diseases
and basic studies of the immune system. Officially dedicated on Aug. 23, the Marian K. Heilbrun Music and Media
Library provides Emory faculty and students with a dizzying array of programming
through a daunting variety of media. The $2.4 million media library, which
boasts state-of-the-art technology to accompany its ever-growing collection
of material, is spread over 17,000 square feet and lined with more than
two miles of shelving. The facility will provide a permanent home for
the media library, which had been housed temporarily in Candler Library
since 1997. Emory’s Class of 2005 is welcomed to the University Aug. 28 during Freshman Convocation, held in Glenn Auditorium. The Class of 2005, numbering some 1,233 students, comes to campus this fall from every part of the United States and 29 other nations. The class is 51 percent female and 49 percent male; 16.6 percent are Asian American, 9.2 percent African American, 4 percent international and 2.8 percent Hispanic.
SEPTEMBER Emory and the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site form a collaborative
partnership to present an exhibition on the history of lynching throughout
the United States from the 1870s to 1960s. The exhibition will run May
1–Dec. 1, 2002, and will be mounted in the Martin Luther King Jr.
National Historic Site. Additionally, Emory faculty and staff will start
the development of educational materials and programs to accompany the
exhibit. Fall semester marks the formal launch of "Research at Emory,"
a Universitywide commission charged with determining the very nature of
research and scholarship on this campus, examining everything from applications
to infrastructure to funding. Twenty-four faculty and administrators from
across campus make up the commission itself, which also encompasses four
smaller committees. Each committee will be charged with investigating
a different aspect of research at Emory. Emory maintains its No. 18 ranking for the third year in a row among
249 national universities in the new U.S. News & World Report
annual college quality rankings. The Goizueta Business School again ranks
16th among undergraduate business programs. Emory’s rankings in the
survey’s components were: 19th in student selectivity, sixth in faculty
resources, 14th in overall financial resources, 23rd in graduation and
retention, 15th in alumni giving, and four out of five stars in academic
reputation. Along with the entire nation and much of the world, Emory reels from
the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. By 10:30
a.m. the morning of September 11, a large-screen television is set up
in the Dobbs Center to broadcast news coverage of the attacks, and a crowd
that reaches into the hundreds assembles to watch. Campus Life personnel
scramble to reserve rooms for quiet mourning and prayer. President Bill
Chace suspends all academic operations as of noon and issues a statement:
"On behalf of the entire Emory community—all of its people in
every walk of life on our campus—I express my deepest sympathy to
the victims of the tragedies of this day and to their loved ones. To the
students and other members of the Emory family who today are in shock
and grief, our hearts go out." Cannon Chapel celebrates its 20th birthday, even in the wake of national
tragedy. According to Candler Dean Russell Richey, the horror that was
Sept. 11 and its aftermath affords Emory the opportunity to learn just
how crucial a space Cannon has become. "In this academic year, we
celebrate the 20th anniversary of Cannon Chapel; we celebrate its centrality
in the life of Candler; we celebrate its elasticity; we celebrate its
place in Emory worship; we celebrate its capacity to accommodate the arts,"
Richey said. "All those aspects or dimensions of its utility came
into expression [Sept. 11]." EmoryGives ushers in a new era in workplace giving, as the University
adds five new partners to its workplace giving program. The United Way
of Metropolitan Atlanta is joined by Community Health Charities of Georgia,
Earth Share of Georgia, the Georgia Black United Fund, Georgia Shares
and the Covington-Newton County United Fund. More than 390 nonprofit groups
under the umbrella of these six federations are now part of Emory’s
workplace giving program. The 20th annual Carter Town Hall Meeting, held Sept. 13 in the P.E. Center,
is without a doubt the most somber in the event’s history. "I
know this is a special occasion," says President Jimmy Carter. "Our
nation has been stricken by an unprecedented attack ... [but] Our nation
will survive, as it always has. We’re the strongest, most powerful,
most freedom-loving nation of them all." The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation presents the Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service in Support of Medical Research and Health Sciences to William Foege, Presidential Distinguished Professor of International Health in the School of Public Health, in a ceremony held Sept. 21 in New York. Foege receives the award for "his courageous leadership in improving worldwide public health, and his pivotal role in eradicating smallpox and preventing river blindness."
OCTOBER British author David Lodge shares his satirical wit and academic acumen
in the Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature, Oct. 7–9. Lodge’s
three-lecture series is followed Oct. 10 by a reading from his newest
novel, Thinks…, a comic look at the field of cognitive science.
Following five years of research in cognitive psychology for the book,
the theme of Lodge’s Ellmann Lectures is "Consciousness and
the Novel." Emory’s growth in garnering sponsored research funding continues
its upward trajectory in fiscal year 2001, increasing by 14 percent to
$247.9 million. In the past five years, the value of sponsored research
has risen 57 percent, putting Emory among the fastest-growing research
universities in the country. After a year of construction that capped more than 10 years of hopes
and dreams, Oxford’s performing arts center is dedicated at an on-campus
ceremony, Oct. 12. The gala opening of the Hugh and Gena Tarbutton Performing
Arts Center, named to honor the Oxford alumnus (’52Ox-’55B)
and his wife whose $1.2 million gift helped fund the project, draws more
than 150 people. The Carlos Museum unveils its renovated and expanded New Egyptian Galleries with the exhibition "Ancient Egypt, Nubia and the Near East." In 1999, the Carlos acquired the most significant collection of ancient Egyptian funerary art to be purchased by a museum in the past 50 years. Combined with the collection of Egyptian material that has been at the
Carlos since the 1920s. this new exhibition gives the Southeast a permanent
display of hundreds of ancient Egyptian artifacts of such remarkable depth
and quality that it catapults Atlanta into the ranks of New York, Boston
and Chicago as a major center for the study and enjoyment of Egyptian
art. The Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing’s new Lillian Carter
Center for International Nursing brings together international nursing
experts and healthcare planners from around the globe at the Carter Center,
Oct. 15–19, for the conference, "Global Nursing Partnerships:
Strategies for a Sustainable Nursing Workforce." Representatives
from approximately 60 countries attend the event, including President
Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who participate in the Oct.
18 dedication of the Lillian Carter Center, named in honor of Carter’s
late mother. Emory nursing Dean Marla Salmon will direct the new center. Early in his Oct. 31 address to a packed house in Glenn Auditorium, Ralph Nader offers up a challenge. "Anything I have done," the longtime consumer advocate and two-time presidential candidate tells the gathering, which had greeted him with a standing ovation only moments before, "you can do better in the 15,000 minutes before you turn 65." The event is titled "The Ethics of Public Participation," and Nader urges all in attendance to become actively involved in their communities. Emeritus professors are given a fresh way to strengthen their ties with the University through a new fellowship program.
NOVEMBER The Heilbrun Fellowships, named for Distinguished Research Professor
of Psychology Emeritus Alfred Heilbrun, are funded through a grant to
Emory College by Heilbrun’s daughter, Lynn Stahl, and her husband,
Jack. The yearlong fellowships will support emeritus professors who remain
active in their research. The initial recipients of the $10,000 fellowships
are Herbert Benario, professor of classics emeritus, and Heilbrun himself.
The Kenneth Cole Foundation commits up to $600,000 to establish the Kenneth
Cole Fellows in Community Building and Social Change program, which will
train Emory students in community-building skills to mobilize residents,
community-based groups, government agencies, businesses, foundations,
universities and nonprofit organizations to work together in strengthening
low-income families and rebuilding the inner-city neighborhoods in which
they live. "As an Emory alumnus, I have been searching for a creative
way to stay involved with the University," says Cole, a 1976 graduate
of Emory College. A 20-member task force convenes to study how best to implement the University’s
new Environmental Mission Statement, adopted in the spring after much
input and discussion. Chaired by Erick Gaither, senior associate vice
president for business management, the task force has the daunting task
of converting somewhat amorphous ideas into concrete structures and guidelines. $5 million "challenge" grant from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, giving the fast-growing center the springboard it needs to leap to the forefront of Jewish scholarship in the United States. The institute hopes to establish a $10 million endowment, and the Blank
gift is made with the understanding that Emory will raise the additional
$5 million. Blank, co-founder and retired co-chairman of The Home Depot,
names the institute after Atlanta Rabbi Donald Tam. Interim Provost Woody Hunter announces the formation of the new Strategic
Planning Committee, which will review Emory’s institutional structures
in the Arts & Sciences and form recommendations to President Bill
Chace about what changes, if any, may be appropriate. The committee, which
is to be cochaired by Hunter and anthropology Associate Professor Michelle
Lampl, is made up of representatives from the administration, the Graduate
Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences and Emory College. To commemorate World AIDS Day, the Emory Center for AIDS Research (CFAR)
and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) host "Yesterday,
Today and Tomorrow," Nov. 29 in the Emory Hospital Auditorium. Through
panel discussion, film clips and formal presentations, it tracks the past,
present and future of AIDS research. Dec. 1 is the 14th World AIDS Day. Michael Johns, executive vice president for Health Affairs, outlines
the status and future of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center (WHSC) in
a "State of Health Affairs" address delivered Nov. 29 in WHSCAB
auditorium. Johns characterizes the past five years in health care as
the "perfect storm" and among the most difficult health care
has ever seen. While claiming WHSC has weathered that storm and is well
positioned for leadership in the years ahead, he says there is still much
to accomplish. |
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Emory
University, Copyright 2002
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