Strategic Planning and Accreditation are Focus of Retreat
Fall semester is well along and the leaves are falling, and I'm wondering where the time has gone. I've just passed my first anniversary as Dean, and I want to thank all of you who have welcomed me into the Wisconsin pharmacy family and made the transition as smooth as it could be. I appreciate it tremendously and look forward to working with you into the future.
The School of Pharmacy recently held an all-day retreat focused on two activities that will undoubtedly be of interest to you. The bulk of the day involved a strategic planning exercise, revitalizing the School's existing plan developed in 2000. A consensus building workshop was held, led by experts from UW's Office of Quality Improvement to identify or, in some cases, reaffirm the school's strategic priorities. This was a raucous and interesting process, made more so by the size of the group -- I don't think more than two or three faculty or staff missed the event, and we were joined by a small group of student leaders as well! The School's Academic Planning Council is busy consolidating and massaging the output from this process into a readable, usable document that will ultimately be used as a guide to School activities and resource allocation over the next few years. Key focal points were people and programs, which you'll hear me talk about a great deal in the coming months and years.
The rest of the day was spent kicking off the 12- to 18-month-long process leading up to the reaccreditation of our professional program by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE). This activity involves an intense self-study process that takes a look at every aspect of the PharmD degree program and gives us an opportunity for honest introspection and reflection about what we're doing, why we're doing it, how we're doing it and how well we're doing it. This extensive document with multiple lengthy appendices then goes to ACPE. The final step involves onsite evaluation by an external peer review team that formulates recommendations for ACPE. The final decision about accreditation is made by their Board of Directors. The optimal result would be reaccreditation for a full six-year period; shorter time periods with interim reporting is not terribly uncommon if a particular issue is uncovered that needs extensive attention. Jeff Wadelin and Greg Boyer from the ACPE office in Chicago joined us and provided excellent advice to get the process going, what to expect and so forth. I hope that every member of the School will participate in this important activity in some way and feel connected to and a part of the process. We will also be calling on alumni and practitioners to join in along the way. Ron Burnette (Pharmaceutical Sciences) is chairing the effort, joined by Barry Gidal (Pharmacy Practice) and Dave Mott (Social and Administrative Sciences) to round out the leadership team. Many thanks to them and to everyone for participating in the self-study and striving to make the PharmD program the best it can possibly be.
My door is always open, and I hope to meet many more of our alumni. You are a key feature of the School, and I appreciate your dedication and support. Don't hesitate to contact me or drop by if you're in the vicinity of beautiful Rennebohm Hall.