Dean Daniel Erb sees school of health science as 'once in a lifetime opportunity'.

Dr. Daniel Erb selected High Point University as much as the university selected him as the first dean of the auspicious new School of Health Sciences. He left a distinguished 11-year career at Duke University to assume the HPU deanship as the new year began.

Before accepting the High Point position, he had spent roughly 18 months considering a variety of offers at prestigious universities across the country. None of them, however, was dean of a new school that he would help create from scratch at a university in the midst of such an extraordinary transformation.

"Helping build a School of Health Sciences from the ground up is very exciting - a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," he says. "But I was also very impressed with the attitude and culture here. The "can-do" spirit of HPU is very refreshing."

He will be involved in designing the school's approximately 150,000-square-foot buildings; hiring department heads, faculty and staff; developing curricula; and working with the regional medical...