You have the extraordinary good fortune to be a graduate of one of the top-ranked schools of public health in the United States. On your résumé, in conversations, and when you are introduced as a speaker, “UNC School of Public Health” has a kind of automatic halo effect. It conveys quality by its very words.

You are part of the reason for our good name. You help make the Carolina School of Public Health what it is. As alumni of our School, you are part of a unique family of health care leaders.

I’ve met extraordinary alumni who have brought prenatal education to North Carolina counties, cancer prevention to churches in NC, alumni who are leaders in governments at the local and national levels, and others who’ve brought clean water to Brazil. You run hospitals, biotech companies, research organizations and university programs. You lead global health organizations as well. You immunize children, inspect restaurants, counsel families and clean up polluted streams. You are state health directors, assistant surgeons general, U.S. State Department personnel and much, much more. Wherever there are leaders, workers and advocates in public health, there are UNC graduates.

In short, you are remarkable.

And you are part of a remarkable place with a very special tradition. Carolina’s School of Public Health is ranked as the top public school of public health by U.S. News & World Report magazine (tied with Harvard for #2 overall). Our scholars come from all over North Carolina and around the world so we can learn from each other.

Carolina gave you a great deal. Some of your education was subsidized by the state of North Carolina and other support we receive. Some of you benefited from special scholarships that came from the generosity of our alumni and friends. It is getting more and more challenging to remain a top school of public health. There are many new schools, and they are looking to take our position. I don’t want that to happen, and neither do you.

So I ask you, as Deans must, to give back to the School of Public Health. Give back, as many of you do, by being active in the alumni association, by serving on committees, by interviewing prospective applicants and by giving us a piece of your mind every now and then.

But please, also give us your gifts of resources. Many of you have given generously to the School over the years, and we appreciate all your gifts. If we are going to remain the top public school of public health, we need your continued generosity.

We need your help in finding the large gifts that can be transformative, the ones that permit us to keep from turning away some of the strongest applicants because we cannot provide financial support, the gifts that will permit us to retain our best faculty, to pay the balance on our new building and to start new interdisciplinary teaching and research programs, the gifts that will permit us to reinvent the curriculum for the 21^st century.

We want to be YOUR school for life. Don’t let the School be just a memory. Stay in touch for social and professional contacts, and also for career enrichment. Tell us what you need, and we will do our best to deliver! There’s a lot of information on the web pages that follow. And feel free to contact Janice Periquet, director of alumni affairs and annual giving (periquet@email.unc.edu or 919-966-0218) for more information on how you can stay close to your School. Thanks for visiting us online, and we are always delighted when you visit in person.

Best wishes,