February 2008

Download PDF version

Faculty     Staff     Students     The Building and Grounds

We recently publicized the $1 million pledge by Fred Eshelman and the matching gift from the Pharmacy Network Foundation. This money will be used to support the elements of the Educational Renaissance as laid out in the School’s strategic plan and our collaboration with Information Technology Services. This kind of commitment by private citizens and organizations demonstrates the confidence they have in us and our ideas, and I am very grateful to them. The University also declared Dr. Eshelman’s gift to be the capstone of Carolina First campaign, which raised $2.38 billion.

AACP has released the FY 2007 NIH funding rankings for pharmacy schools. This year, we are ranked sixth overall, up from eighth last year. In total research funding, we ranked fifth, which is due to our second-place ranking in funding from sources other than the NIH. These numbers represent not just the expansion of our research program and our ability to write grants, but also the value of our ideas and the quality of our faculty.

Thanks largely to the efforts of Moo Cho, Nobel Laureate Oliver Smithies delivered a talk, “Thoughts on the Kidney,” at the School on February 13. This was his first presentation since winning the Nobel Prize last year. It was standing room only in Holt Auditorium.

Nobel Laureate Oliver Smithies (left) shares a laugh with
Dean Bob Blouin during Smithies' lecture at the School on
Feburary 13.

Faculty

William Zamboni, PharmD, PhD, has joined the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics as an associate professor and a member of the School’s Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy. He will direct the new Good Laboratory Practice Analytical Facility. Zamboni earned his PharmD and PhD at the University of Pittsburgh. Before coming to UNC, he was an assistant professor at his alma mater’s pharmacy and medical school, where he was involved in translational studies of anticancer agents.

I also want to highlight two faculty members who have assumed key roles in the past year that you may not have heard about.

	Carla White-Harris is the director of recruitment and diversity initiatives and director of the UNC/ECSU PharmD Partnership Program. It will be her responsibility to develop and execute a student-recruitment plan for the doctor of pharmacy program with the long-term goal of enhancing the quality and the diversity of students applying to the School of Pharmacy. She will also chair the School’s Admission Committee and serve as the primary liaison with Elizabeth City State University.
	Kim Deloatch is our director of assessment, a position that will be vital for monitoring and documenting the success of our doctor of pharmacy program and our students. Her job is critical to measuring our effectiveness and to guiding us through the reaccreditation process.

Staff

I was able to review the responses to the recent staff survey and discussed them in depth with the Staff Council. Your perspective and feedback are extremely helpful in identifying a number of opportunities for improvement here at the School. We are working on short- and long-term initiatives to address these areas. For a start, the business office is implementing new HRAS and InfoPharm training sessions. Other initiatives are in the works, and we will provide more information on them once we firm up our plans.

I’d like to offer special congratulations to Dama Keck, who has accepted the position of school registrar. She has worked in the Office of Student Services for three and a half years and is held in high regard by students, staff, and faculty alike.

Students

Jay Campbell, executive director of the North Carolina Board of Pharmacy, was selected by our fourth-year students as this year’s commencement speaker. He is a 1993 graduate of the School and received his law degree from Vanderbilt University in 1997. He has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and now teaches pharmacy law at UNC, Campbell University, and Wingate University.

School of Pharmacy Commencement ceremonies will be held Saturday, May 10, at 2:00 p.m. in Memorial Hall.

I would like to compliment the Student Senate on a very successful auction on January 31. The auction raised approximately $4,000, which will go to fund student events and programs. The top bid getter was an incredible quilt made by hand by Jessica Ratliff, the mother of PY4 Amber Ratliff. It went for $550 to Dhiren Thakker, associate dean of graduate education and research.

The School will hold Family Day on Saturday, March 29, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Beard and Kerr Halls. It will give students’ families a chance to experience life at the School, including listening to a sample lecture, working in a compounding lab, and getting blood-pressure checks. Invitations will be mailed to parents. Registration is $5 per person, and the deadline to sign up is March 15. Faculty and staff are also invited to attend, with no sign-up necessary.

This year’s White Coat Ceremony is Sunday, March 30, at 4:00 p.m. in Memorial Hall. This ceremony marks students’ transition from their third to their fourth year in our doctor of pharmacy program. The donning of the white coat symbolizes the students’ acceptance of responsibility for the health and well-being of their patients. Students have chosen Ralph Raasch as this year’s speaker.

Rep. David Price has accepted the invitation of our students to lead a discussion, “Health Care at the National Level,” covering how health-care policy is formulated at the federal level. He will speak March 27 from noon to 1:00 p.m. I would encourage all faculty, staff, and students to attend.

The Building and Grounds

Originally intended to be a classroom like 116 Beard, we plan to repurpose 016 Beard (downstairs at the north end of Beard Hall) to help meet our acute need for office space. Once renovated, the room will accommodate eight to ten people. We don’t yet know for sure who will occupy this space, but we will begin work as soon as possible.