UNC-CH donations top $2 billion

With $50 million gift, school hits fundraising goal 'with a bang.'

CHAPEL HILL -- A $50 million pledge from a Triangle businessman and his wife Wednesday pushed UNC-Chapel Hill over its fund-raising goal of $2 billion.

The gift -- the largest single donation in university history -- was announced amid balloons, cheerleaders and a towering cake that said "2 billion and counting."

"We didn't just break $2 billion," Chancellor James Moeser told donors, fundraisers and students. "We broke it with a bang."

Dennis Gillings, chief executive officer of Quintiles Transnational, and his wife, Joan, made the gift to the School of Public Health, where he taught in the 1970s and 1980s. It will be renamed the Dennis and Joan Gillings School of Global Public Health.

"It is an honor to be able to be in a position where you can give like this," said Gillings, who built the Durham-based Quintiles into the world's largest pharmaceutical services company, with annual revenues of about $2 billion.

WHERE THE MONEY WILL GO: It will be used in part to set up labs that will draw scientists from UNC and elsewhere to collaborate on big public health problems. Public Health Dean Barbara Rimer said one example might be devising ways to deliver safe water to the 1 billion people who lack it.

Gillings said he hoped the money would "merge aspirations of public health with some business principles to make a school that accomplishes real things that are practical."

ABOUT THE GILLINGSES: Dennis Gillings was born in England and received a doctorate in mathematics at the University of Exeter. He soon joined UNC-CH and became a full professor at the School of Public Health and director of the Biometric Consulting Laboratory.

He started Quintiles in 1982. Joan Gillings has worked in public health, including at the School of Public Health, and in commercial real estate. She serves on university boards, including the UNC-Wilmington Board of Visitors.

THE CAROLINA FIRST CAMPAIGN: It began in 1999 and was publicly launched in 2002. The original goal of $1.8 billion was upped to $2 billion in 2005. The fundraising effort is the largest in university history. Much of the money will go into an endowment, with returns to be spent in perpetuity. The campaign concludes at the end of this year.

WHAT'S NEXT? UNC-CH trustee Paul Fulton said Wednesday the university won't stop pursuing private dollars. He announced a special goal of an additional $100 million for faculty support. So far, the university has raised $355 million for professors, including money for 193 endowed professorships.

"Having the resources to retain and recruit outstanding faculty remains the highest priority on this campus," Fulton said.