First of the Month Newsletter - November 2007

As I’ve been alluding to over the past several months, we are rapidly approaching the year 2008, which represents the 125th anniversary of this great School of Pharmacy, offering its first classes in fall 1883. That is just amazing. We don’t get many opportunities to commemorate such an incredible milestone, so several events will be held throughout the year to celebrate our history and tradition of excellence in research, teaching, service, outreach, and practice.

Details will be forthcoming, but major events are shaping up to include:

• A kick-off open house scheduled for Wednesday, January 23 in the Commons.
• An extraordinary Student Spring Bash in mid-April, planned by the BS, PharmD, MS, and PhD students together, coupled with the Kremers Lecture featuring our four emeritus deans.
• The US-Thai Pharmacy Consortium meeting in mid-July, where we will host visitors from nine schools of pharmacy in Thailand along with representatives from a dozen or so US schools.
• A 2-day scientific symposium, including the annual Rennebohm Lecture, in early October.
• The best ever Pharmacy Alumni Association Reunion Weekend in November.
  

We will also be doing our best to make everything we do in 2008 special, like the white coat ceremony, graduation, the graduate student mixer, etc. I’ve encouraged the student organizations to keep this in mind throughout 2008, and I invite you all to do so as well. Small commemorative items will appear from time to time, and 125th anniversary clothing and other things will be available for sale throughout the year with the proceeds going to the Pharmacy Alumni Association Scholarship Fund. All ideas are welcome to make this a truly amazing year for the School and its faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends.

Intertwined with the 125th anniversary celebrations will be the launch of the public phase of a major fund raising campaign targeting our top priorities…faculty, professional students, graduate students, and infrastructure. Stay tuned for more information about that as well.

As you can imagine, the level of activity for planning events, activities, publications, etc., etc. is at a feverish pitch. Thanks to the “Dream Team” members who are doing the bulk of the work…Pam French (Alumni Affairs), Diane Stojanovich (Communications), and Linda Halsey (Development). Special thanks to Greg Higby and his staff at the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy for their significant participation and historical guidance, to Tom O’Connor (Business Office) for all sorts of strange things, and to the chairs and members of the planning groups working on the major events.

There will be much more to come about the anniversary, but I wanted to share a few things with you at this point. Diane has created logos and logo items for various uses throughout the year. For example, attached is a Word file containing logos that you can use on printed materials, personal electronic stationery, etc. Also attached are two PowerPoint files with templates featuring the logos. If you have any questions about using the logos, moving them around, resizing them, etc., don’t hesitate to contact Diane. Division and unit offices will also receive a supply of generic SOP stationery (can be personalized), envelopes, mailing labels, name tags, blank note cards, etc. with the 125th logo that everyone is encouraged to use at every opportunity throughout the year. A 125th anniversary website will soon go live at http://www.pharmacy.wisc.edu/125th/. Get ready for an amazing year!

A warm welcome is in order for Laura Breu, who has just joined the Student and Academic Affairs (SAA) Office as the part-time Director of Assessment. She’ll be working most closely with Jeanine Mount (Academic Affairs/SAS) and the Assessment Committee, but her activities will cross all areas of assessment, evaluation, and accreditation. You’ll find Laura in room 1204. Jeremy Altschafl will soon be arriving in the SAA Office as well and will be taking up residence in room 1206. Jeremy will be taking over responsibility for our admissions activities, coupled with advising and other miscellaneous duties. Please stop by and say hello to our new staff! We decided not to move forward with the position of Assistant Dean for Student Services, and that search has been discontinued.

Congratulations are in order for Lian Yu and Mel de Villiers (PharmSci). Their collaborative work on the stability of amorphous drugs has been recognized by AstraZeneca with significant support for graduate students for a 3-year period. Eva Vivian (PPD) was recently featured in Pharmacy Today based on her presentation at the American Diabetes Association meeting in Chicago in June. Mary Hayney (PPD) and coworkers won the Best Abstract Award at the National Association of Transplant Coordinators Conference in New York in August and were finalists in the Best Poster Award at the American College of Clinical Pharmacy Annual Meeting just held in Denver. Mary and colleagues also had a manuscript accepted recently for publication in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, considered among the most prestigious (and toughest) journals in the area. Jeanine Mount’s (Academic Affairs/SAS) participation in a workshop (What Do Women (in Pharmacy) Want?) at the recent annual meeting of the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin (PSW) received bonus coverage in the Nov/Dec edition of JPSW. And kudos to Darin Furgeson (PharmSci) for being named a member of the UW-Madison Biomedical Engineering Center for Translational Research.

Congratulations of a different sort go to Dick Peterson (PharmSci) who became a proud grandfather in September. And congrats and best wishes to Becky Kraus (SAA) for her recent marriage to TJ Beebe. Also to Orly Vardeny (PPD) who ran the Chicago Marathon in 90° heat with a time of 4:28:11.

Thanks to Becky Beebe (SAA) for organizing the best yet Career Fair and related activities…right after her wedding…with significant assistance from and participation by Bob Breslow (PPD/WSPS faculty advisor), Audrey Fish and Marty Kieser (PPD/Experiential Ed), Beth Martin (PPD/WSPS faculty advisor), Jeanine Mount (Academic Affairs/SAS), Tina Rundle (SAA), Denise Walbrandt-Pigarelli (PPD), and PharmD students Theresa Brownson (Student Senate Chair) and many WSPS volunteers that helped with set up, take down, and check in.

Important! From a September 5, 2007 email from Chancellor Wiley:

“In fiscal year 2007, the University of Wisconsin-Madison received over $1 billion in awards from external sponsors. As one of the nation’s leading research institutions, we recognize the important stewardship responsibilities associate with managing extramural funds. These responsibilities include complying with federal requirements to certify faculty and staff effort on sponsored projects. Effort certification is our means of assuring sponsors that (1) the salaries charged to the sponsor are reasonable in relation to the work performed, and (2) faculty and staff have met their commitments to externally funded projects. Currently, effort certification is a subject of intense scrutiny by federal auditors. This is a serious issue for the university; a failure to take it seriously may jeopardize the university’s federal funding for research. To ease the administrative burden, the university is launching a new Web-based information system for certifying effort. This fall, the university will provide training for faculty and staff, as well as for the effort coordinators who will assist with the certification process. Because success in the effort realm results from attention to a number of issues throughout a sponsored project’s life cycle, the training will address both effort certification and how to manage effort from the proposal phase through award closeout. Training for researchers will begin in November; all faculty and academic staff who work on sponsored projects are expected to complete the training by January 31, 2008. More information about effort certification and the new system will be coming your way. When the new system debuts in the fall, please familiarize yourself with both the system and the university guidelines regarding effort commitments and certification. We recognize that the transition to the new system requires an investment of your valuable time and attention, and we appreciate your making this investment to maintain the university’s status as a premier research institution.”

I can only echo the importance that effort certification has taken on with funding agencies, and the critical nature of doing this properly. Sharon Vetter (Research Administration) is the “effort coordinator” for the School. You will be hearing from her directly as training rolls out, and she is at your service to answer questions and simplify and streamline the process.

Faculty searches continue in PharmSci (both Drug Delivery and Drug Discovery). The open staff position in the Research Administration Office has been redefined to focus on the post-award end of things and candidate review is underway. My continuing thanks to chairs and members of the search committees and to everyone who works so hard every step of the way to bring about a successful faculty or staff recruitment.

You’ve recently received information about the 2007 State and University Employees Combined Campaign (SECC) from Tim Gossens (Business Office) who is serving as the SOP chair again this year. As most of you know, this is an annual fund raising activity to support charitable organizations throughout the community. Like last year, we will hold a drawing for an autographed item from UW Athletics (football signed by Coach Bret Bielema), as well as two sets of four UW men’s hockey tickets, as a “thank you” at the December Faculty/Staff meeting (see “save the date” section). FYI…In the 2006 Campaign, about 18% of all SOP employees contributed to the effort. I’d like to get that participation rate back up around 40% where it was in 2005. The size of the donation doesn’t matter, but let’s shoot for this enhanced participation goal in support of many organizations and agencies serving those less fortunate than ourselves.

In the October 1 First of the Month, I highlighted graduate students who were honored at the recent Graduate Student Mixer. I neglected to include several students receiving fellowship support or awards from the School…my apologies. The full list follows:

Fellowships (all PharmSci grad students; ~$200,000 total):

• Connors Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship to Claire Schmerberg
• Kier Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowships to Yao Fu and Sunita Joshi
• Perlman Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship to Nicole Rockich
• Resch Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowships to Xiaoyue Jiang and Tze Chung Lai
• Roudebush Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowships to Di Mai and Kenneth Simmons
• Vevoren Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowships to Kyle Kleinbeck and Ryan Peterson
  
• Continuing American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education (AFPE) fellowship support to James Dowell (Li/Johnson groups)
  

Travel awards (~$6,000 total):

• Lachman Travel Award in PharmSci (Drug Delivery) to Jun Huang (Yu group)
• Wiederholt Travel Awards in SAS to Yu-Chieh (Jack) Chen (Kreling group), Abhijit Gadkari (Mott group), Shih-Ying (Audrey) Hung (Mount group), JeongSun (Monica) Hwang (Young group), Minhee Kim (Svarstad group), Pallavi Patwardhan (Chewning group), and Suntaree Watcharadamrongkun (Mount group)
• Witiak Travel Award in PharmSci (Drug Discovery) to Changhong Ko (Hsung group)
  

Other awards (~$5,000 total):

• Rennebohm Foundation TA Awards to Howard Chen (Furgeson group, PharmSci), Abhijit Gadkari (Mott group, SAS), Jeanine Porter (Mott group, SAS), and Joe Su (Burnette group, PharmSci)
• Rennebohm Foundation Dissertation Awards to Bupendra Shah (Chewning group, SAS) and Jie Yang (Thorson group, PharmSci)
• Sarah Hicks Allgeier (Peterson group, PharmSci; Molecular and Environmental Toxicology graduate student) was selected as one of two recipients of the 2007 Zaman-Saroya Award

Other info and “save the dates”:

• Get your flu shot! Flu shot clinics, free to all UW faculty and staff, will be held from October 29 through November 16 at a variety of campus locations.
• Plan now to join us for the 2007 Alumni Weekend on November 9 and 10. A terrific reception and awards ceremony for SOP Citations and the Alumni of the Year Award is held on Friday evening in the Commons, followed on Saturday by tailgating at Union South (8:30am) and the football game versus Michigan (11:00am kickoff). Among the citation winners this year is our very own Judy Thompson (professor emerita, PharmSci/PPD). Similar to last year, SOP faculty and staff are welcome and encouraged to attend the Friday event as my guests, but you do have to RSVP. Dean’s Club members (donors at or above $500 for the year) will also be invited as my guests. Those faculty and staff that are also Dean’s Club members will get twice the thanks! Contact Pam French (Alumni Affairs) for details.
• The Wisconsin alumni breakfast at the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) meeting in San Diego will be held Monday, November 12 from 7:00-8:30am in Torrey 1,2,3 at the Hilton.
• The next Executive Committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, November 13 at 12:00 in room 1128. 12 members and 9 advisory members must be present to constitute a quorum for regular business. On November 13, the ExecComm will be considering a promotion to full professor so 11 members at the full professor rank must be present.
• My annual get-together with all the assistant professors has been scheduled for Thursday, November 15 at 8:00am in room 1128. Breakfast too!
• Our alumni gathering at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) conference in Las Vegas is scheduled for Sunday, December 2 from 6:00-9:00pm at Balley’s…please note the change of venue.
• A fall Faculty/Staff meeting will be held on Thursday, December 6 at 1:00 in room 2002. Formal decision-making (voting) falls under the responsibility of the faculty (tenure, CHS, and clinical). However, all classified and academic staff are invited to attend and participate…check with division chairs and unit supervisors to ensure coverage of essential functions.
• The 125th anniversary kick-off open house will be held on Wednesday, January 23 in the Commons from 3-6pm.
  

The first Wisconsin reception for alumni and friends at an American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) meeting was held recently in Denver with a small but enthusiastic attendance. Alums Romaine and Arlene Ellingson were selected from 2007 Dean’s Club members to join me in the Chancellor’s Box at the November 10 Badger game vs. Michigan. Linda Halsey (Development) and I had a nice visit with alum Lenor Zeeh complete with homemade chocolate chip cookies, as well as lunch with Chad Overman, college relations person with Wal-Mart. I also had a long-overdue lunch with Kato Perlman, wife of our late dean David Perlman. Alum Robert Wills recently established a graduate student support fund that will be building over the next 3-4 years.

All the best! Jeanette