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Week of 24 October 1997 Vol. I, No. 9 Feature Article Talbot Building opening A dream house for School of Public Health by Jim Graves As recently as 1995 two School of Public Health departments and other tenants in the turreted red brick Talbot building moved out "for fear it might tumble down on them," says SPH Associate Dean Dzidra Knecht. The structure has long formed the architectural as well as the physical centerpiece of the Medical Campus. Now after undergoing 18 months of structural and cosmetic renovations, the 121-year-old Queen Anne- style landmark at 715 Albany St. replaces 80 East Concord St. as the main address and focal point of the entire Medical Campus. And all this has special meaning for the School of Public Health, which is taking up new quarters in the historic structure. "What a change for both the Talbot Building and our school!" notes Knecht. "I used to look at the decaying building from my office window and say, 'That's where our school should be located.' Now with the renovations almost completed, it's hard to describe the uplift we feel over the prospect of actually moving into it next month. In its 21 years, SPH has expanded greatly, but has never had a unified home. Right now our offices are scattered in five different buildings." So when the building officially opens on Friday, October 24, with a ribbon cutting, the event will also signal SPH's coming of age. The school will occupy 48,215 square feet of office and conference space on the second through the fifth floors of the Victorian structure. The prominent address, says Elizabeth Ollen, who directs communications and special projects at SPH, will mark the school's emergence from a small program established in 1976 in the School of Medicine into an institution with an international reputation, featuring 7 departments, some 650 students, 2,400 alumni, a faculty of 75 full-time and 210 part-time members, and offering 3 different doctorates and 7 master's degrees. "We started with a few local students who were already working as health professionals, and now we attract students from 140 countries," Ollen says. The historic Talbot Building, at 715 Albany St., has been renovated to provide a home for the School of Public Health. The imposing Victorian structure, which will be formally reopened on October 24, replaces 80 East Concord St. as the main address of the Medical Campus. Of SPH, Knecht says, "We're risk-takers, always looking for something to fix in society and health. For instance, when we spotted a need in the area of AIDS prevention, we obtained a federal grant and scholarship funds and trained front-line health-care workers to do prevention. And to further health promotion, we started the Health and Housing Fellows Program, which places students with extensive community service backgrounds in public housing while earning their MPH degrees. The students help tenants learn to become economically and socially self-sufficient." In the area of substance abuse, she notes SPH's innovative Join Together program, which electronically links community health-care personnel around the country in antidrug efforts. "And to mention just one other innovation, several years ago one of our students asked a professor why we didn't institute a program to train nurses as midwives. The question resulted in our instituting an academic program which does just that." SPH Dean Robert F. Meenan corroborates the school's orientation toward students. SPH, he says, "has been successful largely because we have concentrated on meeting the self-described needs of current and incoming students. We also recognize the important link between education and practice. Our faculty participate in diverse activities on the local, state, national, and international levels, and our students have the opportunity to participate in, and learn from, these activities." As much as Knecht looks forward to being in SPH's new home, what about actually moving there? "With all the stuff we've accumulated over the years, moving will be controlled chaos," she says. Watch the Bridge for details of an open house to be held for the public at the Talbot Building in December. The landmark Talbot Building Like the School of Public Health, which it will house beginning next month, the Talbot Building has undergone dramatic change and growth. The central structure of today's Talbot Building was designed by William Ralph Emerson, the cousin of essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, to serve as a clinical teaching hospital for the Boston University School of Medicine. It was completed in 1876 and later named for Israel Tisdale Talbot, the first dean of the School of Medicine. An east and a west wing were added in 1884 and 1892. The building has just undergone a restoration preserving its Victorian exterior and providing the interior with elevators and updated plumbing and electrical systems as well as new decor. SPH's new quarters, on the second through the fifth floors, will include 153 offices, 7 conference rooms, and 2 large meeting rooms, enabling the school to be housed at a single site for the first time in its 21-year history. The ground floor will provide public access linking the Medical Campus with the University's BioSquare business park. The interior renovation was carried out with the intention of preserving original architectural details as well as achieving comfort. Accordingly, 13 of the original 17 fireplaces were preserved, and 2 Victorian spiral staircases were restored to their original elegance. "We established two primary requirements," notes SPH Associate Dean Dzidra Knecht. "One was that there should be natural light in as many of the offices as was possible. With the addition of new windows -- the total number of windows is now 479 -- our quarters will indeed be sunlit. Our second requirement was that each of these windows could be raised and lowered. This was expensive, but what kind of public health practitioners would we appear to be if we didn't provide our new offices with access to fresh air?"