Campaign Emory already has raised $838 million, thanks to the generosity of donors making large and small gifts alike. At the launch event for Emory University’s historic $1.6 billion campaign September 25, alumni, friends, and University leaders shared stories of donors who have helped bring the University to its current standing and launched the campaign in spectacular fashion.
Among the transformational gifts highlighted at Campaign Emory’s launch were those from Robert and George Woodruff and the Woodruff Foundation, whose $105 million gift to Emory in 1979 “was truly the moment when the University began to define itself differently,” said Crystal Edmonson 95C, president of the Emory Alumni Board and an emcee at the event. The Woodruff name has been closely associated with Emory’s advance into the front rank of American research universities. There are now six buildings on campus bearing the Woodruff name, and Woodruff funds have allowed Emory to create new scholarships and professorships and enhance academic programs and library collections. Recently, the Woodruff Foundation gave $240 million for the construction of a new state-of-the-art Emory health care facility.
The philanthropy of Thalia and the late Michael Carlos helped transform the Michael C. Carlos Museum into one of the most prominent university museums in the country. Since the beginning of Campaign Emory, Thalia Carlos has provided substantial support to the museum for acquisition of significant works, worthy of her commitment for the museum “not to be the best, but to be the very best.”
Legacy giving has had a tremendous influence on the University’s face and programs. Following the example of family patriarch O. Wayne Rollins, the Rollins family has continued its history of philanthropy at Emory with more than $51 million in gifts to Campaign Emory, including $50 million to lead the construction of the school’s new Claudia Nance Rollins Building.
Likewise, the Tarbutton family has played a similar role in supporting Oxford College. The generosity of Hugh Tarbutton Sr. 52Ox 55B, who has served on the Oxford Board of Counselors since 1982, has resulted in the naming of the Hugh and Gena Tarbutton Performing Arts Center, a beautiful performance center that houses rehearsal spaces, classrooms, studio arts facilities, and the Tarbutton Theater. Hugh Tarbutton Jr. 84Ox has continued the family legacy at Oxford. He has served as a member of the Oxford College Board of Counselors since 2002, chairs the Library and Academic Commons fund-raising committee, and made the first gift to develop the new library facility. This gift will more than double the Oxford library's existing space.
Other donors support Emory because they have been captivated by the work of Emory's physicians, researchers, and partnerships. John F. Brock III, chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola Enterprises, and his wife, Mary, established the Anise McDaniel Brock Chair and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Cancer Nanomedicine at Emory. They also have established a similar position at Georgia Tech. With matching gifts from the Georgia Research Alliance and the Georgia Cancer Coalition, the chairs now total about $3 million each and will benefit joint Emory/Georgia Tech research that is exploring how nanomedicine may help detect, prevent, and treat cancer. The chair honors John Brock’s mother, who was stricken with lung cancer and treated at Emory Winship Cancer Institute. Although the cancer claimed her life, the Brocks are grateful for the care she received at Emory.
Recently the Brock family broadened their support to Emory, giving $500,000 to the Department of Psychiatry’s Child and Adolescent Mood Disorders Program to expand the availability of mental health services for young people with depression and to support clinical research combating this serious problem.
Other donors believe in the value of an Emory education and want to help talented young students attend Emory. Wendell 80C and Mary Laney Reilly 81C 00T, for instance, have focused their giving on Emory Advantage, a new financial aid program that makes it possible for any qualified student to get an Emory education, regardless of finances. The couple met while students at Emory and served in the Peace Corps together before returning home to find success in the advertising, publishing, and investment banking industry. They are committed to helping Emory move toward its goal of fostering a community of scholars that better represents the world outside the campus gates. Emory Advantage provides grants to students whose families earn less than $50,000 a year—eliminating need-based debt. It also caps institution-related debt for students from families earning up to $100,000 a year. The result is the ability to attract students from across the economic spectrum, greatly strengthening the economic diversity of the student body and fostering a more diverse, richer experience for all Emory students.
Attorney Ben Shapiro’s commitment to encourage law students to work in public service positions led him and his wife, Nancy, to support the Emory Public Interest Committee (EPIC). The student-run organization at Emory School of Law provides opportunities for students to learn about and participate in public interest activities. After graduating from Emory College and Emory School of Law, Shapiro founded Shapiro Fussell, a leader in construction law. The Shapiros' $100,000 gift to EPIC has allowed Emory law students to intern in public service organizations and to provide pro bono hours in New Orleans, which continues to struggle with equality and justice.
For others, supporting the faculty who teach Emory’s students—the world’s future leaders—is critical. Bishop Mack Stokes, for example, served as director of Emory’s Graduate Division of Religion for nearly 20 years and was associate and acting dean of Candler School of Theology. Because of his academic experience and his appointment to Candler’s first named chair, the Franklin N. Parker Chair of Systematic Theology, Stokes understood the impact of a naming gift. He made plans to leave a parcel of land to Candler after he and his wife, Rose, passed away. Their son Arch, an alumnus of Emory College and Emory School of Law, saw a way the couple could make this gift and donate another parcel of land during their lifetimes. The gift was finalized just days before Rose died in February 2008 and has enabled Candler to create the new Bishop Mack B. and Rose Y. Stokes Chair in Theology.
Emory has enjoyed a long relationship with The Coca-Cola Company, stretching back to the company’s founding in the late 19th century. Recently The Coca-Cola Foundation pledged $3 million dollars to support financial aid and sustainability initiatives at Emory. Two-thirds of the gift will support Emory Advantage, specifically to benefit students in Emory’s Goizueta Business School and Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. The remaining portion of the Coca-Cola gift will support Sustainable Partnerships for Atlanta Neighborhoods (SPAN), a new initiative of Emory's Office of University-Community Partnerships. SPAN will allow Emory students and faculty to collaborate with community leaders and volunteers on natural resources, environmentally conscious land use and housing development strategies, and air quality.
The generosity of Emory faculty is evident on campus and throughout the community. George Brumley was a visionary leader at Emory who, as chair of pediatrics from 1981 to 1995, turned a small department into a large, thriving one. After his retirement, he and his wife, Jean, intensified their efforts to improve the lives of young and often vulnerable children through the Whitefoord Community Project, which ensures that children in the inner-city Edgewood community have what they need to succeed in school, including good health. In collaboration with Emory, a pediatric clinic at Whitefoord Elementary School was created to serve children and families in Edgewood. A second clinic at neighboring Coan Middle School serves pre-adolescent youth. After Brumley's death in 2003, the family and the directors of the Zeist Foundation created the George W. Brumley Jr. Chair in Pediatrics, now held by Dr. Barbara Stoll, whom Brumley recruited to Emory. She directs Emory pediatrics and the Emory Children’s Center and is extending the Brumleys' vision to guarantee healthy futures for children.
September 2008
