Celebrating a Lifetime of Service to Public Health

Curran laughs recalling that when he applied to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) after earning his medical degree at University of Michigan, his resume “was the size of a folded Kleenex.” However, by the time he made his bid to come to Rollins, he had done groundbreaking work on HIV/AIDS at the CDC, rising to the rank of assistant surgeon general. Curran also earned membership in the National Academy of Medicine in 1993. 

Not accomplishments to sneeze at, for sure. But as Curran acknowledges, the demands of a dean were different: he had never been an academic, never tried his hand at private philanthropy.  As the search committee was deliberating, Dr. William H. Foege, professor emeritus of global health at Rollins, put in a good word—not once but twice—for Curran, who had served under Foege when he was director at the CDC. Both times his advice was, “Jim Curran tops my list. Don’t waste time in securing him.” 

At age 51, Curran moved into the still not fully occupied 140,000-square-foot Grace Crum Rollins Building, already thinking about what his term of service should be. “I knew that five years would not be enough,” he says. “Ten years seemed like a normal amount of time—and then it just kept on going.”

What follows is about the man who kept it going, in the effort becoming Emory’s longest-serving dean and the longest-serving dean at a school of public health.

Something was killing gay men in the early 1980s, and when responsibility for investigating the outbreak was given to Curran—then head of the research branch of the CDC’s Sexually Transmitted Disease Control Division—his life changed forever, as did the lives of those to whom he brought clarity about the disease and, with that, hope.

The task force he was asked to chair was supposed to be active for 90 days; Curran pursued the work for 15 years. June 5th of this year was the 40th anniversary of the publication of the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that carried the news of those first five cases. 

Beyond the difficulty of the scientific mystery before him, Curran also had to summon enormous energy. That first year, he went to New York City 40 times, arriving on Mondays and leaving on Fridays—when the 1981 air traffic controller’s strike wasn’t bolloxing up those plans. 

Drive was never in short supply, nor courage. There were high and low moments interacting with the gay community, all of which Curran took in stride. Members of Act Up chained themselves to his office door. At one point, 20,000 postcards were sent to his home bearing an image of him on one side and a target on the other. 

Curran was empathetic because he understood that “the activists were fighting for their lives.” As far as he was concerned, “it was an important problem,” and anything he had to endure to get to a solution “was just part of the job.”

Says Dr. Michael M.E. Johns, the inaugural Michael M.E. Johns Chair in Health Policy at Rollins, emeritus executive vice president for health affairs at Emory, and emeritus president and CEO of Emory Healthcare: “He had to figure it all out, put the pieces together. There was no script. He went to New York and California looking for clues. He had the notion that this was an infectious disease.” 

The case definition Curran’s task force established was adopted worldwide, allowing early and consistent recognition of the AIDS epidemic. In reflecting on that time, Curran says, “The most important thing we did was come out with prevention recommendations before the cause was found. If you read those recommendations today, they sound pretty good.”

Awards poured in for his work. One of the highest honors, though, came not in the form of a statue or certificate: Curran inspired Dr. Robert Gallo—co-discoverer of HIV as the cause of AIDS—to change his focus from cancer to AIDS. It was a banner day on May 4, 1984, when Gallo’s work was published in Science, providing hope that more barriers to knowledge of the disease would fall. 

In gifting a copy of Virus Hunting: AIDS, Cancer, and the Human Retrovirus to Curran, Gallo wrote: “To Jim Curran, the outstanding epidemiologist and the key man in our opening understanding of AIDS the disease, AIDS the epidemic, and AIDS the social problem of our time. Thank you so much for your years of brilliant insights and stimulating discussions and especially for your open-ended generosity with ideas.”

While one might gain a taste for all the attention that came of being a leading investigator into HIV/AIDS, Curran is not that person. He sees the principal value of his reputation as being what it can do to advance health. 

An example is Emory’s Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), where Curran was co-director until stepping down in January 2021. It was, says Kathryn Graves, senior associate dean for advancement and alumni engagement at Rollins, “established in 1998 largely on Jim’s reputation; he was the PI on that first submission.” Now jointly headed by Drs. Ann Chahroudi, Colleen Kelley, and Carlos del Rio, Emory’s CFAR is one of the largest in the country with nine ‘cores’; its research focus areas extend from HIV risk factors to HIV cure. Emory’s unit has had particular success attracting nationally recognized HIV investigators in the past 20 years. Funded by the NIH, the 17 CFARs at academic and research institutions throughout the United States support multidisciplinary research aimed at reducing the burden of HIV. 

Says del Rio, who is also executive associate dean, Emory School of Medicine and the Grady Health System; distinguished professor of infectious diseases, School of Medicine; professor of epidemiology and global health, Rollins: “Dr. Curran has taken Rollins to unimaginable levels by always putting people first and ensuring that the right faculty are recruited, nurtured, and retained. He is an excellent listener, a thoughtful problem solver, and a voice of reason.”

Of the work they have shared at CFAR, del Rio comments: “Establishing the Emory CFAR is one of Jim’s most important contributions. His selfless leadership allowed it to grow as a university-wide initiative that has benefited everyone at Emory. All of us who have worked with the dean have learned about leadership from one of the masters.” 

Dr. Kimberly Jacob Arriola—the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences—was executive associate dean for academic affairs at Rollins before assuming her new role as dean of the Laney Graduate School on September 1, 2021. It is a breathtaking rise for someone who joined Rollins as a postdoctoral master’s student in 1998.

As someone who likes “hard things,” Arriola set ambitious goals for herself, yet she also is quick to credit Curran. Arriola had been director of graduate studies for six years but had limited administrative experience before joining the dean’s office. She acknowledges that Curran’s belief in her was thicker than her resume. “What he saw in me was potential,” Arriola notes. “He gave me the resources and support that I needed to do well in my job. He doesn’t micromanage. He likes to let people just run,” she says.

Arriola is keenly aware that she is not alone, that Curran demonstrates an uncanny ability to identify talent and then align people’s strengths with the work they do. 

“He deeply understands that faculty are the lifeblood of the school, and so recruiting and retaining an eminent faculty is really central to our success,” says Arriola. “He puts a lot of energy into helping empower the chairs of the departments to recruit the leading scholars, instructors, and practitioners in the field.”

At conferences, on panels, wherever the best of class in public health congregate, there is respect for Curran. According to Arriola, “Jim’s stature in the field helps us tremendously. He is an icon because of his enormous contributions over the span of a 50-year career.” 

Fundraising might have been the last arrow added to the bulging Curran quiver, but he learned to do the work with surpassing skill by understanding that, as he notes, “you have to match donor interests and gain their trust as a good steward of the investments they make.” 

Graves says that before the Grace Crum Rollins Building opened in 1994, “it was hard for people to understand that we existed. Once the building went up, it was clear that we were a viable entity.”

That viability, in large part, stems from a multigenerational relationship with the Rollins family that began with the largesse of O. Wayne and Grace Crum Rollins, their children Randall and Gary, and now Amy Rollins Kreisler, daughter of Randall Rollins and executive director of the O. Wayne Rollins Foundation, as well as her siblings Pamela, Richard, Robert, and Timothy Rollins. 

Graves knows how unusual it has been for her and Curran to work with the family across generations. She calls it “an amazing privilege, one I treasure.” The trust that Curran has built with the Rollins family “is at the heart of the school’s success,” she says. 

“The family is very proud of what we built,” Graves adds. “We work every day to make the school the best it can be. We have more than 11,000 alumni in more than 100 countries. They proudly carry the Rollins name throughout the world.”

Having such longstanding, generous donors as the Rollins family might cause some deans to be less attentive to fundraising as a whole. Not so Curran: he calls everyone who gives $500 or more. “In this way,” he says, “people know that you personally care about their gift. For some donors, that means a lot.”

Curran put a priority on endowment—what he calls the “third rail” after tuition and research dollars. He used a generous, unrestricted gift from Grace Crum Rollins to establish the O. Wayne and Grace Crum Rollins Endowment Fund. In the ensuing years, more than 100 endowment accounts have been created, and the school’s endowment now stands at more than $153 million. In fact, Rollins has two endowed departments—the Hubert Department of Global Health and the Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health—the only ones solely at Emory.

Kreisler knows Curran as a man of his word, delivering the Claudia Nance Rollins Building on time and within budget and poised to do the same for the R. Randall Rollins Building, named for her father. “Jim has done an amazing job leading the school, making it a comfortable decision for us to support its success over the years,” she says. 

Says Curran, “What Randall Rollins cared about was ‘what is happening with the school that our name is on?’ My role was to come up with strategies for how best to use the endowment money—whether for faculty chairs or junior faculty—to show that his investment would help us in an enduring way and why it was crucial to keep renewing it.” 

As Kreisler grew into the role she now occupies, she had a bird’s-eye view of the family’s relationship with Curran. “Jim’s credentials were so impressive already; it was natural to embrace him and see what he could do for the school,” she says.

She is serving on the search committee for Curran’s successor based, she says, on the fact that “Jim is leaving such a legacy of strength, and we want to see that strength continue.”

Where he finds the time to do it, no one knows, but Curran has contributed substantially both to the Georgia Department of Public Health (GDPH) and the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH).

For nearly 20 years, Curran has served on the board of the GDPH. As chair of the board since 2019, his counsel has been of immense value to Commissioner Kathleen Toomey as Georgia has sought to tamp down COVID-19.

Representing schools and programs accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health, ASPPH has 134 member institutions, including five international. Curran chaired the board of directors from 2005 to 2007, currently chairs the group’s Global Engagement and Partnerships Advisory Committee, and helped launch the Global Network for Academic Public Health.

Says Laura Magaña, the CEO and president, “As chair and in all the roles he has graciously assumed on behalf of ASPPH, Jim is always innovating, engaging, and caring. He consistently challenges all of us to think outside the box—driving the field of public health further. He leads with incredible passion, vision, and has a wicked sense of humor that keeps us laughing even under the most stressful situations.”

Dean Surbey, executive associate dean of administration and finance at Rollins, has been alongside Curran from the start, watching his level of commitment to ASPPH. “He knows all the deans and commands their respect,” says Surbey. “You cannot underestimate that power.” 

As she ticked down a long list of things she admires about Curran, Magaña took a breath and said, “There is just no one like him. He’s Jim, right?”