Public Health Magazine - Fall 2008 - Woodruff Health Sciences ...

Left page: O. Wayne Rollins with his mother, Claudia Nance Rollins, at her Catoosa
County home in northwest Georgia. Above left and center: Audience members Gary
(left) and Ruthie Rollins and Bob and Danielle Rollins Henritze enjoy the groundbreaking,
along with Peggy and Randall Rollins. Above right: Amy Rollins Kreisler (left),
Michael Johns, and Fred Sanfilippo wait their turn on stage during the ceremony.
Right: Former Emory health sciences leader Charles Hatcher (left) and former Emory
President James Laney both supported creation of the RSPH in 1990.
as the public health capital of the
world,” he said.
‘A fortunate problem’
When James Curran became dean
of the rsph in 1995, the school had
occupied the Grace Crum Rollins
Building for nearly a year. The
school has since tripled its students,
faculty, and research. Now the
school has what Kreisler calls “a fortunate
problem”—the need for more
space. The Claudia Nance Rollins
Building will enable the school to
expand its physical capacity, recruit
additional faculty, grow its research
and education programs, and attract
more students with the goal of
becoming one of the top five public
health schools in the world.
“We cannot achieve those things
without this building,” said Curran.
“And we would not have this
building and all that it represents
without the vision and generosity of
the Rollins family.”
Slated to open in fall 2010, the new
facility will have technologically so-
phisticated “smart” classrooms, wet
laboratories on three floors, offices,
conference space, and an auditorium.
It will support education and research
in several key areas, including global
health, predictive health, infectious
disease, cancer, diabetes, and other
chronic diseases. Conference capabilities
will augment the development
of training, distance-learning, and
professional exchange programs. The
Grace Crum Rollins Building will be
renovated to enhance existing classroom
and office space and provide a
full-service cafe.
The building has been a partnership
from the beginning. slam Collaborative,
the building architect, has
based its design on ideas generated
by rsph faculty, staff, students, and
alumni; members of Emory’s health
sciences and university communities;
and the Rollins family. Filled
with natural light and energy-saving
features, the building is designed to
achieve silver status for Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design.
once it opens, the Claudia Nance
Rollins Building also will enable the
school to better serve the university,
city, state, nation, and world, just as
its multiple planners intended.
“Many of our alumni think of
themselves as Rollins graduates, and
as those alumni practice what they
learn here, hundreds of thousands
of people throughout the city and
the world know the Rollins name
as a sign of hope,” Curran told the
great-great grandchildren of Claudia
Nance Rollins at the groundbreaking.
“Most of those people will
never know you, but like us, they
will be grateful to you.”
As the ceremony concluded,
Kreisler reflected on what the new
building and the rsph would mean
to o. Wayne Rollins.
“My grandfather once said that
‘giving to a living institution that
goes on and on and affects people’s
lives—to me that’s the best. That’s
the highest kind of giving when you
invest in people.’ I can’t think of a
better example of his philosophy
than this school.”
fall 2008 public health magazine 17