Message from the Dean for faculty and staff

Our school’s faculty members are among the very best in the world, as teachers, researchers, mentors and colleagues. Supporting them and this School are a cadre of incredibly talented, enthusiastic and capable staff members. Each of us has an important role to play if we are to continue the tradition of excellence, the atmosphere of erudition, the commitment to applying research results, and the spirit of collegiality and collaboration that pervades UNC. I want the School of Public Health to be a great place and a great place to work — a place where great contributions are made by faculty, students and staff. But I also want the School of Public Health to be an institution that supports and nurtures faculty, students and staff, a school that celebrates diversity, and one that helps faculty, students and staff lead healthy, fulfilled lives. At the end of the day, I want us to come to work each day excited by the challenges and to leave each day feeling that we’ve done something to make a difference. Ours is the great privilege and great responsibility to train the next generation of public health leaders, to advance the science of public health, and to turn that knowledge into action, evidence and practice. As a state university, we have a special obligation and responsibility to the citizens of North Carolina. It’s part of what makes the School of Public Health so strong, because our faculty, students and staff are inextricably woven into the fabric of North Carolina. Over the years, remarkable science and great contributions to North Carolina have resulted from our School’s research projects as well as from our teaching and service. But our commitment goes beyond our state’s borders. Increasingly, our research, teaching and service are, as they should be, international in scope. We are global citizens and scholars, and our work transcends all borders. We have many significant challenges ahead — to make a difference in the health of people in North Carolina and around the world, attract and support the best applicants, train tomorrow’s leaders, manage our resources wisely and secure continued funding in an era of apparently shrinking Federal resources. But I am confident that we have what it takes to survive and thrive. That is evident from our history and from what I know of you. Working together, we can make a difference. I am proud and grateful to be dean of this outstanding school.

Last updated March 13, 2008