Headlines at Hopkins: news releases from across
the 
university Headlines
@Hopkins
News by Topic: news releases organized by subject News by Topic
News by School: news releases organized by the 
university's 9 schools & divisions News by School
Events Open to the Public (campus-wide) Events Open
to the Public
Blue Jay Sports: Hopkins Athletic Center Blue Jay Sports
Search News Site Search the Site

Contacting the News Staff: directory of university 
press officers Contacting
News Staff
Receive News Via Email (listservs) Receive News
Via Email
Resources for Journalists Resources for Journalists

Virtually Live@Hopkins: audio and video news Virtually
Live@Hopkins
Hopkins in the News: news clips about Hopkins Hopkins in
the News

Faculty Experts: searchable resource organized by 
topic Faculty Experts
Faculty and Administrator Photos Faculty and
Administrator
Photos
Faculty with Homepages Faculty with Homepages

JHUNIVERSE Homepage JHUniverse Homepage
Headlines at Hopkins
News Release

Office of News and Information
Johns Hopkins University
3003 N. Charles Street, Suite 100
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-3843
Phone: (410) 516-7160 | Fax: (410) 516-5251

April 20, 2001
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE ON
MONDAY, APRIL 23
CONTACT: Dennis O'Shea
Cell phone: (410) 493-0726


Hopkins Names Public Health School
for Michael Bloomberg

The Johns Hopkins University today renames its School of Hygiene and Public Health in honor of alumnus and media entrepreneur Michael R. Bloomberg (pictured at right), recognizing his unprecedented commitment of energy and financial support to the school and the entire university.

The school's official name is now the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Bloomberg has been chairman of the university's board of trustees since 1996 and previously was chairman of the Johns Hopkins Initiative fund-raising campaign. The founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P., a worldwide news and financial information company, he devotes hundreds of hours a year to Johns Hopkins.

He also is the largest donor in the 125-year history of the Johns Hopkins Institutions, with gifts including $100 million to the Johns Hopkins Initiative, which concluded last year. Of that, he designated $35 million in endowment for the unrestricted use of what will now be known as the Bloomberg School

"Mike is utterly devoted to Johns Hopkins and its mission," said William R. Brody, president of the university. "His first gift to Hopkins was $5 in 1964, the year he graduated. Since then, through graduate school and Wall Street, raising his daughters and starting a global business, he has never lost sight of what Hopkins can do for the world. He has never wavered in his determination to help. Johns Hopkins today is a far better place and better able to make the world a better place because of Mike Bloomberg."

Bloomberg's interest in philanthropy as a tool to improve the human condition meshes with the mission of the School of Public Health, which focuses its research and teaching on health and the prevention of disease. The school is at work around the world, addressing such problems as AIDS and other infectious diseases, child malnutrition and maternal health, the causes and prevention of chronic diseases like cancer, and the organization and financing of health care.

"Mike gets it. He really understands our mission, our accomplishments over the past 85 years and our potential to do even more," said Alfred Sommer, dean of the Bloomberg School. "The faculty and I are honored that his name will be forever linked with the school and its work."

"This institution is the world's greatest public health school and I am honored that it will bear my name," Bloomberg said. "The commitment of its faculty, researchers and students has had a profound impact around the globe as they have worked to improve the health and well- being of countless people who are not able to get the care they need otherwise."

The Bloomberg School was founded in 1916, the world's first stand-alone school of public health and still the largest, in students, faculty and research funding. Its original name School of Hygiene and Public Health reflects its roots both in the German model of biological research applied to health issues, or hygiene, and in the British tradition of public health practice. To avoid the confusion caused by today's more restricted meaning of "hygiene," the word is being dropped from the new name.

Bloomberg, 59, is a 1964 electrical engineering graduate of Johns Hopkins. He has served as a trustee since 1987. Bloomberg's gifts to Hopkins have supported all eight academic divisions. The second portion of his $100 million gift to the Johns Hopkins Initiative, announced in 1998, included $30 million for financial aid, primarily for full-time undergraduates in the university's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and Whiting School of Engineering.


Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/
   Information on automatic e-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.


Go to Headlines@HopkinsHome Page