Nursing Dean Marla Salmon launches construction of a new marble and stucco nursing building on Clifton Road.

he location is prime, and the timing couldn't have been any better for the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing to break ground in October for its new $22 million building on Clifton Road. And what a show the nursing school put on as its leaders demonstrated that they know well how to wield a classy shovel and drive a mean bulldozer. To the delight of a crowd of well-wishers, School of Nursing Dean Marla Salmon proved she was equally at ease dumping the first load of red earth for the nursing school building as she is directing the school's future. It was a ceremonial gesture that topped a productive year for Emory nursing: a year that saw the creation of a new PhD program, recruitment of an internationally respected dean, and now the symbolic moving of earth for a state-of-the-art facility. Location, location, location seemed to be the mantra of the day with Executive Vice President for Health Affairs Michael Johns pointing out that nurses are usually the first people patients see when they go to a clinic or hospital. So it's fitting that when the new building opens at 1520 Clifton Road, it will be the first part of campus that many visitors to Emory see. It's prime real estate in other ways too. Its site, next to the Rollins School of Public Health and near the biomedical research facility now under construction, will help the schools make the most of their shared interests in teaching, scholarship, and social responsibility.

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The location also represents nursing's integral location in the overall health sciences program, Johns told the large gathering. "A good health sciences center must have the strong participation of both nursing clinicians and nurse scholars working in patient care settings and on interdisciplinary teams to forge new solutions to health care in changing times." Timing counts too, he said. "This is nursing's time. Nursing is experiencing a period of great growth and change, and the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing is moving with speed to prepare students for the changing roles and responsibilities open to nurses today." The building will house the doctoral program, whose first students arrived last fall. The new facility will fortify the nursing school's other strong educational programs, including undergraduate nursing and multiple clinical specialty offerings. To view an architectural rendering, see www.emory.edu/FMD/web/statreps.htm.