1988

The University libraries launched DOBIS, Emory's first computerized library catalogue and immediate predecessor to EUCLID. The digital age at Emory kicked into high gear.

1990

The Rollins School of Public Health was established.

In December, following a year-long quiet planning phase, Emory formally launched the Campaign for Emory, with a goal of raising $400 million over five years. By the campaign's end, the University would raise some $420 million. An additional $130 million in planned giving would bring the University a charitable remainder worth $72 million.

1991

Emory University System of Health Care was established. The system would be incorporated in 1994 and renamed Emory Healthcare in 1995.

The Carter Center began The Atlanta Project in collaboration with the University. This five-year effort to alleviate the social ills of the city resulted in inoculations of medically underserved children and streamlined social services, but would conclude five years later as a noble experiment that did not meet all expectations.

1993

President Laney announced his intention to resign in order to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea. His appointment became effective in October; Provost Billy Frye served as interim president until a search for Laney's successor was completed.

1994

William M. Chace, a Berkeley-trained scholar of Joyce and former president of Wesleyan University, was appointed Emory's eighteenth president.

A $10-million gift from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation and a vote of the University's Board of Trustees resulted in a name change for the Emory Business School to the Roberto C. Goizueta Business School of Emory University, honoring the Chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company.

The Carter Center formalized an agreement with Emory and became a separately chartered, independently governed unit of the University.

1998

The XIVth Dalai Lama spoke at the University Commencement exercises to great acclaim. While on campus for two days, he met with representatives of Emory College and signed an agreement to establish an Emory program in Tibetan Buddhist Studies in Dharamsala, India, home of the Tibetan government in exile.

Scouring the attic of Candler Library on a hunch, library staff discovered "The Triumph of Alexander," a plaster frieze that had adorned the lobby of the library from the time of its construction, in 1926, until its first renovation, in 1955, when the frieze was boxed up and forgotten. The frieze would be restored and remounted during renovation of the library in 2002-04.

After two years of work, the University unveiled a new Campus Master Plan to guide its physical planning for the next fifty years. Principles of the plan returned the University to the architectural guidelines established by Henry Hornbostel in 1916.

Emory acquired the former Briarcliff estate of Asa Candler Jr., which for several decades had been owned by the State of Georgia and operated as the Georgia Mental Health Institute.

2000

The Miller-Ward Alumni House—Emory's first building dedicated for use by the Association of Emory Alumni—opened to acclaim. Visitors remarked on "how beautifully restored the old building looks"—even though it was brand new.

Old Church in Oxford was rededicated on 18 June 2000. Built in 1841 as a college chapel and church for the town, the building had fallen into serious disrepair since its previous restoration in the 1970s. Following extensive renovation, the Old Church was celebrated in a special service whose keynote speaker was Trustee Emeritus Bishop Bevel Jones, (1946C, 1949 MDiv, 1997 HD). Old Church was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.*

2003

Nearly seven decades after the University first planned to build a center for performing arts, Emory finally was able to fulfill this dream with the dedication of the Donna and Marvin Schwartz Center for the Arts, named for an Emory alumna (Emory College Class of 1962) and her husband. The week-long series of dedicatory concerts concluded with a rouser by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

James W. Wagner, a biomedical engineer and provost of Case-Western Reserve University, was appointed as Emory's nineteenth president.

Following a $17-million renovation that required entirely gutting the structure from ground to roof beams; the Asa Griggs Candler Library was returned to its original splendor and rededicated.

In a feat rarely duplicated, both the men's and the women's tennis teams won national team titles in NCAA Division III competition.

2005

Emory announces the $540 million sale of royalty rights to the leading anti-HIV drug Emtriva, a compound invented by University professors Dennis Liotta and Raymond Schinazi and former researcher Woo-Baeg Choi.  Believed to be the biggest sale of intellectual property in the history of higher education, the sale provides some $130 million in scienticfic research and education funding to jump-start Emory's strategic plan.

On September 26, Emory releases "Where Courages Inquiry Leads:  Emory University Strategic Plan, 2005-15," marking a culmination of nearly two years of planning ny more than 1,000 individuals across all the University's schools and divisions.  The plan identifies strategic goals, schools and unit aspirations, and signature themes and initiatives, through which Emory will aim to reach the highest tier of research universities.

The Transforming Community Project (TCP), an ambitious, five-year undertaking meant to take an honest, comprehensive look at race at Emory, gets under way with a series of community dialogues.  Associate Professor Leslie Harris and Vice President Gary Hauk co-chair the project, conceived the previous year by Harris and Professor Catherine Manegold.

2007

His holiness the XIV Dalai Lama is named Presidential Distinguished Professor at Emory, the first university appointment accepted by the 1989 Nobel Peace Laureate and leader of the Tibetan exile community.

*Source: Bond Fleming, Dean Emeritus of Oxford College, letter dated March 4, 2005

1989

Irish poet and, later, Nobel Prize-winner Seamus Heaney inaugurated the Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature, named in memory of Emory's first Robert W. Woodruff Professor.

Manley Lanier "Sonny" Carter '69C-'73M rocketed into space aboard the space shuttle Discovery. In addition to performing scientific experiments during the shuttle flight, Carter carried an ancient Babylonian artifact from the Emory Museum of Art and Archaeology.

1992

The Emory Women's Center opened in a modular unit on the parking lot behind the Dobbs University Center. In 2004, renamed the Emory Center for Women, it would finally move into "permanent" quarters in Cox Hall.

Mikhail Gorbachev, shown here with then-Emory President James T. Laney

Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the former USSR and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, drew such intense interest as Emory's Commencement speaker that the Quadrangle had to be fenced for the first time.

1995

Emory was admitted to membership in the Association of American Universities, which comprised the sixty most eminent public and private research universities in the United Sates and Canada.

Emory became the first private university in the South to extend benefits to same-sex domestic partners of employees.

The Emory Conference Center Hotel opened in the hardwood forest off Houston Mill Road. Designed to fit harmoniously into the natural environment, the facility features 198 guest rooms and 20,000 square feet of meeting space.

1997

Emory acquired the papers of Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate of Great Britain, to add to its extensive collection of manuscripts and materials of distinguished twentieth-century poets.

The denial of use of Oxford's Day Chapel by an Oxford employee for a same-sex commitment ceremony led to debate about the appropriate balance between equal rights of gay and lesbian employees and adherence to principles of The United Methodist Church, with which the University is affiliated. Extensive discussions led to compromise guidelines for use of the chapels, as distinct from Glenn Memorial Church on the Druid Hills campus and Allen Memorial Church on the Oxford campus.

The Phoenix Plan—a comprehensive agreement for the University to manage fraternity houses in exchange for better fraternity governance—was implemented, quickly becoming a model for other campuses to emulate.

1999

Enticed by a "going-out-of-business sale" at the Niagara Falls Museum and Daredevil Hall of Fame, the Carlos Museum raised $2 million from the Atlanta community to purchase a collection of Egyptian artifacts, including ten mummies—one of which was Ramesses I, the only pharaoh ever to leave Egypt.

Building on programs in place for nearly two decades, Emory College launched the Institute for Jewish Studies.

President Chace appointed the Committee on Traditions and Community Ties at Emory (the CONTACT Emory Committee) to recommend ways for improving the University's sense of community and tradition. After more than a year of work, the committee would submit some fifty-three recommendations, ranging from improvement of signage to construction of residential colleges.

2001

Pitts Theology Library acquired its 500,000th volume, The Academic President as Moral Leader: James T. Laney at Emory University, 1977–1993 (Mercer University Press), by F. Stuart Gulley '86T.

Spurred by increasing interest in fostering a "green campus," the University Senate proposed an Environmental Mission Statement, which the administration adopted.

2002

The Clairmont Campus, a new "living/learning" environment with apartments for 1600 students, athletic facilities, and academic space, opened for residence. Formerly the University Apartments, built on Clairmont Road by a developer in the 1950s and purchased by Emory in 1985, the new campus became immediately popular for its contiguity to Lullwater, the shuttle buses running to the main campus, and amenities like the Olympic-size outdoor pool.

The U.S. Green Building Council awarded certification for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) to Emory for the Whitehead Research Building—the first building in the Southeast to receive this recognition.

University Distinguished Professor (and former U.S. President) Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize, the first Emory faculty member to win a Nobel Prize while serving on the faculty.

In his ninth year as president, Bill Chace announced that he would return to teaching as soon as his successor could be found.

2004

Earl Lewis, a scholar of history and psychology, and dean of the graduate school at the University of Michigan, was appointed provost of the University, making him the highest-ranking African-American in Emory history.

The University announced the acquisition of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Collection, believed to be the largest private poetry collection ever built, comprising some 60,000 volumes and tens of thousands of periodicals and manuscripts.

The Board of Trustees approves names for four perenially flowing streams on campus: Antoinette Candler Creek, George Cooper Creek, Henry Hornbostel Creek, and Ernest Richardson Creek.  All four names, chosen from dozens suggested by the Emory community, recognize persons who played an important role in the development of the campus.  Richardson Creek, names for the former groundskeeper of Lullwater during Walter Candler's ownership of the estate, is the first campus plae names for an African American.

2006

Emory announces the five-year appointment of celebrated writer Salman Rushdie to the Emory faculty as Distinguished Writer in Residence, beginning in spring 2007.  Rushdie also places his archive in Emory's Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Library (MARBL).

Emory receives a gift of $261.5 million from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation to help fund major portions of the University's strategic plan.