$45 million, new name for Drexel public health school

An idea that started in the back of a car in Ethiopia 21/2 years ago culminated Wednesday with a $45 million gift to Drexel University's public health school and a new name: the Dana and David Dornsife School of Public Health.

The donation, one of the largest in the university's history and by far the biggest for the public health school, will strengthen Drexel's long-standing commitment to Philadelphia neighborhoods and broaden its global work in urban health.

Wednesday's announcement brings the California couple's Drexel gifts to $58 million.

Dana Dornsife grew up in Yardley and graduated from Drexel with a bachelor's degree in business in 1983 - 13 years before the school of public health was founded.

The couple's philanthropic focus - projects that can be sustained locally, with success measured by data - and hands-on tendencies have earned them comparisons with more famous givers.

"Despite all their wealth, they are in touch with what the community needs. They remind me of the Gateses," said Marla Gold, a former dean of the public health school. "They used their money to bring water to villages where women had to walk miles and miles" every day.

It was a March 2013 tour of one of those well-drilling projects, which the Dornsifes were funding through the Christian humanitarian organization World Vision, that led to Wednesday's announcement.

Drexel University president John A. Fry was riding with the couple and Shannon P. Marquez, who oversees global issues for the public health school, to tour the well project in Ethiopia.

Fry was interested in exploring partnership possibilities for the university in Africa. He already knew the Dornsifes, who just a few months earlier had given Drexel $10 million for a project to help reinvigorate two neighborhoods in West Philadelphia.

In Ethiopia, Fry got a firsthand look at how the philanthropists operate.

"David said, 'When we get there to the village, you will see a bunch of guys who want to talk. They'll want to show me the equipment.' Sure enough, guys run up to them, pull out the maintenance logs, and David is sitting there very patiently as they go through the logs," Fry recalled.

The university soon created a global development scholars program, started with an additional $500,000 from the couple, that sends students to Africa for three to six months to work on water- and sanitation-related projects, said Marquez. Twelve just returned, and two are on their way to Mozambique.

"For children under 5, the biggest cause of morbidity and mortality is access to clean water," said Marquez. When girls must haul water for 30 to 45 minutes several times a day, she noted, they often drop out of school, are vulnerable to infections and nutrition problems from dirty water, and face a cascade of other issues.

Two years ago the Dornsifes gave $200 million to the University of Southern California, where David Dornsife, 71, graduated in 1965. He is chairman of the steel fabricating company Herrick Corp.

Dana Dornsife, 54, who graduated (as Dana Noonan) from Pennsbury High School in 1979, cofounded Axiom Design Inc., a lighting and interior-design company. She also founded and is president of Lazarex Cancer Foundation, which helps pay for patients' participation in clinical trials.

As a student at Drexel, her interest was in retail. "I absolutely loved it," she said Wednesday, recalling cooperative education projects that had her working at Strawbridge & Clothier, the Philadelphia Macaroni Co., and IBM.

"I love Philadelphia as a city," she said, but never lived here after college. Other than annual donations for scholarships, she had little ongoing connection with the school until five or six years ago. She gave much of the credit for the projects the couple have supported to Fry.

"Understanding the role that a university should play with the urban environment, and understanding the impact that approach can have," were among the factors that helped inspire her involvement, she said.

The Dornsifes' gift will fund a range of projects, from an "urban health collaborative" to endowed professorships and scholarships, an expansion of global health programs, and a fund that public health school dean Ana Diez Roux can use to tackle new issues.

Schools of public health train students in the well-being of entire populations, as opposed to the individual focus of medical schools. Temple University has a College of Public Health that was recently created through the reorganization of existing schools and public health department. The University of Pennsylvania and West Chester University have smaller public health programs, as does Jefferson University's College of Population Health.

Drexel's Dornsife School of Public Health, the only school in the region to be accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health, currently has 425 graduate students and 41 undergraduates, and 62 faculty. It awards master's and doctoral degrees, and the first class of students with bachelor's degrees in public health will graduate in June 2016.

Diez Roux, who grew up in Argentina and was named dean two years ago, said the unifying theme of these new initiatives was the relationship between urban planning and public health.

Cities in Asia and Africa are growing quickly, she said, and offer lessons in what has and has not worked well in areas ranging from walkability to access to food and education.

"Historically we have focused on Philly," she said. Adding a global emphasis to the school will allow Drexel to explore what she sees as the ultimate challenge: "How can we build and organize cities that are healthy for us all?"

dsapatkin@phillynews.com

215-854-2617@DonSapatkin

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Dana and David Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University

$45M: New gift

466: Current enrollment, including 41 in new undergraduate program

62: Faculty

164: Degrees granted in June

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