January 30, 2008 edition

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Carolina First campaign brings in $2.38 billion

In a recent State of the University speech, Chancellor James Moeser described private funds as the fuel that propels a university to greatness.

With the close of the Carolina First Campaign, which raised a record $2.38 billion over the past eight years, the University has surpassed expectations in that quest.

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Grant will allow rural life study to continue

For the past five years, University researchers have examined how living in smaller cities, towns and rural areas influences the development of young children.

Now, with a $12.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, researchers at the FPG Child Development Institute and the School of Education will look at how well these children make the transition to school.

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Carolina North plans presented to town, BOT

The master plan for Carolina North, along with a concept plan for an Innovation Center that would serve as its gateway project, shared center stage at the Chapel Hill Town Council meeting on Jan. 23.

Jack Evans, executive director of Carolina North, said the twin presentations of the master plan and a concept plan for the Innovation Center were important steps for the town’s approval. Both marked a culmination of months of planning on a host of fronts.

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Mellon Foundation funds innovative interdisciplinary civil rights scholarship

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York will support a collaborative effort on civil rights between the University and UNC Press.

The three-year, $937,000 grant will support “ Publishing the Long Civil Rights Movement,” a project that, through print and digital publications, will underscore one of Carolina’s longstanding academic priorities: interdisciplinary civil rights scholarship.

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Pledge generates $18 million for cancer research

Fred Eshelman may not have intended to propel the Carolina First Campaign into the history books, but his $9 million pledge to the School of Pharmacy did just that. The University now has completed the fifth-largest campaign in higher education and the largest at a southern university.

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Pledge generates $18 million for cancer research

Fred Eshelman may not have intended to propel the Carolina First Campaign into the history books, but his $9 million pledge to the School of Pharmacy did just that. The University now has completed the fifth-largest campaign in higher education and the largest at a southern university.

The board of North Carolina’s University Cancer Research Fund matched the pledge, generating a total investment of $18 million. The funds will support cancer research by the School of Pharmacy and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center that focuses on genetics, individualized cancer therapy, drug discovery and drug delivery.

Calling the Eshelman pledge another great example of public-private partnership, Chancellor James Moeser said it also showed the significant impact of leveraging commitments from multiple sources.

“Dr. Eshelman’s support epitomizes what this campaign has been all about,” Moeser said. “Carolina First truly transformed this university. Every dollar has made us a stronger institution, and every donor has our deepest gratitude.”

Eshelman is CEO and founder of Wilmington-based PPD Inc., a global contract research organization providing discovery, development and post-approval services as well as compound partnering programs to the biopharmaceutical industry.

His latest pledge builds on his $20 million commitment to the School of Pharmacy in 2003. That marked the largest commitment ever to a U.S. pharmacy school.

Bob Blouin, dean of the School of Pharmacy, said that Eshelman wanted to keep the school moving forward. He pointed to NIH funding to the school as an example of its progress. In 2003, the school ranked 22nd among the nation’s pharmacy schools in NIH funding. Last year it had climbed to eighth.

“Thanks to the support of generous donors, our aggressive pursuit of research funding and partners like Lineberger, we have had great success in attracting really top-flight scientists to the school over the past few years,” Blouin said.

“That kind of effort puts considerable strain on resources, and we expected that it would take five years to have all our new centers working at full capacity,” he said. “Dr. Eshelman wanted to significantly shorten that time frame.”

Moeser said Eshelman’s commitment marked a “particularly appropriate high note to go out on.”
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