Among the milestones in the life of a faculty member, few are more noteworthy than promotion to associate professor with the award of tenure. Sandro Mecozzi (PharmSci) recently achieved this milestone. Congratulations, Sandro, and continued success!
In the past couple of "Firsts", I mentioned that Sandro is a member of an interdisciplinary team that received one of only 8 seed grants from the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery (WID). I was very pleased to discover that Ben Shen, Jon Thorson, and Dick Hutchinson (PharmSci) are part of another of the seed grants that were funded from WID. Their project seeks to discover new agents to impact cell migration and inflammatory processes. The project received special coverage in the April 11th "Wisconsin Week". In addition, Shen, Thorson, Hutchinson, and Richard Hsung (PharmSci) are a key part of a project entitled "Wisconsin Infectious Disease Drug Discovery" funded through the Medical Education and Research Committee (MERC), who is responsible for distributing and stewarding the funds that flowed to UW-Madison from the Blue Cross/Blue Shield settlement some years ago now. Congratulations on these successes!
Celebrating our PhD graduates is something I'd like to do a lot more of. And this is definitely the time to do it with six dissertation defenses in PharmSci in April: Adam Alani (Robinson/Kwon), Peter Anderson (Mecozzi), Aleksey Gerasyuto (Hsung), Jared Mays (Rajski), Nadiya Sykorenko (Hsung), and May Xiong (Kwon). That may be a record! And extra congratulations go to May who recently received notice of funding for her Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) for Individual Postdoctoral Fellows (F32) in Mark Davis' lab at Cal Tech. Nicely done! Congratulations also to James Dowell (Li) who has successfully renewed his fellowship from the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education (AFPE) for next year.
Technology developed in Jeff Johnson's (PharmSci) lab is being developed by a start-up company named Mithridion located in Research Park. You may recall that Mithridion won the 2005 Governor's Business Plan contest. Recent successes include substantial new funding from a group in Madison called Venture Investors.
The Pharmacy Practice Division (PPD) generates some funds each year through their participation in distance education courses of the Physicians Assistant and Nursing programs. Part of the dollars this year will be used to help six PharmD students engage in international health experiences. Megan Sheahan will be involved in an internship at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Melissa Natzke and Heather Schaefer will be traveling to Uganda with an interdisciplinary group of UW students and faculty to engage in a field experience there. Kimberly Ackerbauer, Sarah Krzywda, and Victoria Groth will be part of the first group of students participating in clinical rotations in Thailand. In addition, there are a couple small, but growing endowed funds at the School dedicated to support the clinically-oriented research of the PPD faculty and the engagement of PharmD students in that research. This summer, funds will support Austin Capper will be working with Mary Hayney on her work in immunization and vaccinology. Thanks to PPD for supporting these important educational opportunities for our students.
I'm very pleased to report that Kathy Skibinski has decided to maintain her faculty position with Extension Services in Pharmacy (ESP) after the semester at an 80% level. In other news from ESP, Anna Legreid Dopp will be spending the next year at the University of North Carolina in a specialized fellowship program to enrich her future professional roles at the School.
Additional congratulations are in order for Melanie Schneider (Student Services). In mid-April, Melanie received the campus-wide Award for Excellence in Student Affairs...only one awarded...with a nice write-up in the April 25th "Wisconsin Week". In addition, Melanie recently completed the requirements to become a certified Career Development Facilitator. Great work!
Congratulations of a different sort for Diane Stojanovich (Director of Communications) who ran the 2007 Boston Marathon in the middle of a Nor'easter with a time of 4:12:45...Wow!
As many of you know, Joe Bonnarens (SAS) will be leaving us in May for the Pacific University School of Pharmacy. Please join me in thanking him and wishing him the very best in his new position.
Significant action continues on the many faculty and staff searches, but I have no firm news to report at the moment.
The 2007 White Coat Ceremony, symbolizing the DPH-1s' entry into the profession of pharmacy, was, as usual, beautifully organized and conducted by the students (with a little help from WSPS faculty advisors Joe Bonnarens, Beth Martin and Bob Breslow (both PPD), and alum Kim Lintner). Henry Young (SAS) was selected by the students to give the keynote address, which was terrific, and Mara Kieser (PPD/Experiential Ed) led the students in the Oath of a Pharmacist. There must have been 300 family and friends in attendance for the festive occasion, second only in importance to graduation itself. Thanks to all who attended or participated in some way.
The White Coat Ceremony is always held in conjunction with PSW's Educational Conference in April. Orly Vardeny and Chris Sorkness (both PPD) were featured speakers at the conference with several SOP faculty in attendance. Curt Johnson (PPD), who is also editor of the Journal of the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin, announced the recipient of the Jennings Murphy Award for the best paper in JPSW the year before. Thanks to Dave Kreling (SAS) and Lee Vermeulen (PPD/UWHC) for serving as part of the award selection committee this year. Jeanine Mount (SAS) and PharmD student Quoa Her presented a poster on professional misconduct and the judicial role of the Pharmacy Examining Board. Also at the meeting, Mary Hayney and alum Sue Kleppin conducted their training program in immunization delivery.
I'm also pleased to let you know that the Pharmacy Alumni Association (PAA) Executive Committee recently appointed Sue Kleppin to the position of Executive Secretary of the organization. Welcome, Sue, to this important new role with us!
A bill was introduced in the Legislature a month or two ago providing state funds for a loan forgiveness program for graduates from UW-Madison and MCOW's medical schools in exchange for practicing in a medically-underserved part of the state. Along with Tom Engels from PSW, I've been meeting with state representatives and staffers in an attempt to develop a companion bill for PharmD graduates. Still a work in progress...
The School's Board of Visitors met, as usual, in late April. This group of 20 or so key alumni is a wonderful source of real world guidance for the School, our programs and facilities, and especially our fund raising activities. We started the spring meeting with a trip to the UW Marching Band concert at the Kohl Center, which was amazing. Thanks to Gordon Sacks (PPD) for serving as faculty liaison to the BOV this year.
Alums Don Lindsay and Dr. Ann Stelmach made leads gifts last month to the newly created Faculty Excellence Fund. This fund will ultimately be used to support our outstanding faculty in a variety of ways. As you can imagine, support for faculty recruitment is especially relevant to us at the moment. The Kenneth Connors Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship, generously provided by alum Jordan Cohen and his wife, Jana, in Ken's honor (emeritus professor PharmSci) is now fully funded and will be given for the first time this fall.
On the save the date list:
- The next Executive Committee meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 8. Among other business, the Committee will be considering a promotion to full professor, which requires 8 tenured full professors to be present.
- The fifth annual UW-Madison Ice Cream Social, held to thank all employees for their hard work and dedication, will be held on Wednesday, May 9, 1:30-3:00, on Bascom Hill between North and South Halls.
- Our spring Faculty/Staff Meeting will also be held on May 9 at 3:00 in room 2002.
- The Hooding Ceremony and gala reception (this is an amazing event!) for MS, PhD, and PharmD graduates will be held on Friday, May 18 in the Memorial Union Theater, with graduation occurring later that evening at the Kohl Center. Graduation for the BS Pharm/Tox students will occur Saturday morning, followed by brunch with the students and family members immediately after. All faculty and staff are invited to attend the Hooding Ceremony and give the Class of 2007 an official send off!
- Nominations from division chairs for faculty to stand for election to the Academic Planning Council (APC), the Faculty Activities Review Committee, the faculty representative to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), and the faculty liaison to the School's Board of Visitors for 2007-08 are requested by May 15. I'll be contacting everyone soon to solicit your ideas about committee service for next year as well.
- The Eighth Annual Pharmacy Alumni Association (PAA) Scholarship Golf Tournament will be held on Thursday, June 14 at the Meadows at Six Mile Creek in Waunakee. Put those foursomes together to benefit the PAA Scholarship Fund...it's a blast! Contact Pam French for more information.
And don't forget...lot 85 will soon be utilized as a staging area for the West Campus Utilities Project. New parking arrangements will be offered to those of you who park in that lot, and a few changes in the building will be made to better handle the expected increase in pedestrian traffic. An extra dose of patience will be required to get around our part of campus for the 18- to 24-month duration of the project.
Enjoy the arrival of spring! Jeanette