UI officials: New College of Public Health building is world-class

IOWA CITY - The University of Iowa has in the past 12 years built a world-class College of Public Health, and now that college has a world-class facility it calls home, UI President Sally Mason said Friday at the dedication of the college's new building.

For the first time in the college's 12-year history, students, faculty and core administrative staff are being housed under

one roof. The nearly $48 million College of Public Health Building opened at the beginning of the spring semester.

A banner at the building entrance declared “Welcome to our New Home” for the several hundred who attended Friday's ceremony and tour.

“It's easy to see how successful we have been,” College of Public Health Dean Sue Curry said. “It's a time to imagine how successful we will be.”

During a tour before the dedication with Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa City, and Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials saw examples of the public health research UI faculty and students conduct, and learned about projects in agricultural safety, aging populations, cancer prevention and promoting a healthier workforce.

“The University of Iowa has been a terrific partner for the CDC,” Frieden said. “They've been a real leader in many areas of prevention. They have important centers on prevention, on injury, on worker health, and they're identifying things that are helping not only Iowans but people throughout the country and with implications throughout the world.”

The college already houses almost 30 centers of excellence that focus research in critical public health areas, Harkin said.

“It's no question that experts at this college have had a profound national impact in the last decade,” Harkin said.

Now is not the time to retreat in matters of public health, Harkin said, but rather the time to be on the offensive to push for greater strides.

“Now is the time to really make a quantum leap in public health,” he said. “Why is society structured so that it's easy to be unhealthy and harder to be healthy?”

The ability to recruit talented faculty and students who remain at the cutting edge of public health research “is now enhanced a thousand fold or more” with the new facility, Mason said.

Having the college together under one roof, after years of having faculty housed in five locations and teaching in nine locations, will benefit research and collaborations with outside partners such as health departments, businesses and hospitals, Curry said. Those collaborations are the “lifeblood of what we do, that's what keeps us relevant,” she said, and they will be greatly enhanced by having a permanent home for the college.