Items on the “save the date” list include:
- New: Emily Gilbert (SAA) has organized an information session by Rhonda Sager (Ebling Library) on the developing situation with using copyrighted materials/images in teaching. The presentation will be held on Monday, August 4 at 9am in room 2006. The session will be recorded and available on the web for those who cannot attend in person.
- New: The weeks of August 18 and 25 are chock full of new student orientation events for our incoming BS, PharmD, and graduate students, our multicultural students, the pre-pharmacy club, and even “boot camp” for the new DPH-1 experiential education piece. So lots of activity leading up the first week of class.
- A retreat of the faculty and staff has been scheduled for Monday, August 25. Additional details will follow, I’m expecting the following elements to be included:
- A State of the School summary (am; faculty and staff).
- A proposed timeline and process to revisit and revise our strategic plan, including our mission, vision, and values statements (am; faculty and staff).
- Our annual approval of action items (and associated resource allocation) proposed by the Academic Planning Council (APC) for 2008-09 based on our current strategic priorities (am; faculty and staff).
- Significant discussion about features of the PharmD curriculum revision to be organized by the Curriculum Committee (pm; faculty only).
- New: Executive Committee meetings for 2008-09 have been scheduled for the first Tuesday of every month at 12 noon in room 1128. If little business is on the radar, the meetings can always be canceled, but it worked very well last year to get in the habit of setting aside a specific time each month. For fall semester, the meeting dates are September 2, October 7, November 4, and December 2. Please note: 11 members and 9 advisory members must be present to constitute a quorum for general business.
- New: The annual Graduate Student Mixer provides an opportunity for all grad students (especially the new students) and faculty to mingle and get acquainted will be held on Friday, September 5 at 5pm in the Commons. Graduate student fellowships and various awards are also announced at that event.
- New: The PharmSci Division will be holding an open house to allow UW-Madison undergraduates to explore and learn about our graduate program on Thursday, September 25 at 6pm.
- New: The next major event celebrating our anniversary will be the 125th Scientific Symposium, including the 2008 Rennebohm Lecturers, to be held on October 2-3. Several visiting speakers and our own faculty are slated to participate, and we’ve invited Drs. Victoria Hale and Ahvie Herskowitz from the Institute for OneWorld Health as the Rennebohm Lecturers. Stay tuned for additional information.
- The American Institute of the History of Pharmacy (AIHP) will be hosting a conference at the School on October 17-18 entitled “Modern Medicines: New Perspectives in Pharmaceutical History.” Additional details and registration information can be found at www.aihp.org.
- New: Our third annual Faculty Recognition Event has been scheduled for Tuesday, October 28 from 4-6pm in the Commons. Come, share a snack and a beverage, and take a moment to recognize and thank our faculty for all their accomplishments and contributions to research, education, service and outreach, and practice.
- New: I expect several faculty meetings to be held throughout the summer and fall dealing with various aspects of PharmD curriculum revision, but we will undoubtedly have end-of-the-semester business to attend to as well. To that end, please set aside Tuesday, December 16, 11:30 -1:30pm for that purpose. Please note: 26 faculty (all tracks, all ranks) are required to constitute a quorum to hold a formal vote.
The recomposed Curriculum Committee has been established and is already at work. The membership includes Mary Hayney (chair, PPD), Ron Burnette (PharmSci/delivery), Betty Chewning (SAS), Barry Gidal (PPD), Warren Heideman (PharmSci/action), Chuck Lauhon (PharmSci/discovery), Dave Mott (SAS), and Orly Vardeny (PPD); two PharmD students will be added after fall semester starts. Among other items, my charge to the group includes more and better communication with and input from the faculty about the PharmD curriculum revision, with the goal being a draft revised curriculum in its entirety by the end of fall semester. I expect this group to work very well together and to serve as outstanding representatives of the faculty and am excited and interested in the product to be developed. Thanks again to those who have served as members of this Committee over the past several years.
As you recall, the faculty approved the idea of increasing our incoming class by a maximum of 10 students. The exact situation remains unclear for Fall 2008 with last minute changes, but I suspect we will be in the 137 range or so. As mentioned, this increase will be coupled with additional resources to the School derived from the additional tuition revenue. I welcome your thoughts about where resources are needed to accommodate the new students, at this point focused in the first professional year.
Remodeling of the Commons is also back on the radar screen due to the need to better utilize that valuable space resource. While remodeling will be expensive, I believe it is vital to take the project on to free up space elsewhere in the building for other critical needs. One question that relates to this deals with our Stockroom. Tim Gossens and Tom O’Connor (Business Office) and the Division Chairs will be exploring issues with users relating to the Stockroom… the nature of items required for various purposes (research, teaching, administration), the size of the inventory needed, etc. I also welcome your thoughts about the size and scope of the Stockroom to support your professional activities, with the general sense of needing to devote some/all of its current space for research-related purposes due to space constraints.
After additional consideration about the proposed changes in the salary credit policy, I’ve decided to basically scrap the proposal altogether and continue with business as usual. I will continue to seek arrangements that will be positive and incentivizing rather than the opposite. I’ve also learned (once again) about the different needs and ways of operating of the various divisions and will probably have division-specific proposals relating to salary credit dollars that make more sense. Thank you for helping me think through these issues.
Our thanks and good-byes go out to Olivia Szymanski (Dean’s Office) who is off for 2 years in the Peace Corps in Belize. Please stop by and meet Anna Reinhart, the new student assistant in the Dean’s Office. Anna will be starting her junior year in the fall, double majoring in Spanish and art history. Welcome, Anna!
Don’t forget that Rhonda Sager has been named the Pharmacy Liaison from Ebling Library after Gerri’s retirement. Feel free to contact her as you would Gerri at rsager@library.wisc.edu or 262-2372.
As mentioned previously, I’m in the process of sitting down individually with all members of the SOP faculty and staff to listen to your views about whatever aspects, features, areas you feel I need to hear about. Thanks in advance for taking the time to provide feedback to me in this way.
Some recent faculty highlights to mention:
- Lee Vermeulen (UWHC/PPD) is the recipient of the 2008 Innovative Pharmacist Award from the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin (PSW).
- The start-up company, Mithridion, co-founded by Jeff Johnson (PharmSci) was again highlighted in the July 11 edition of the Wisconsin State Journal for clinical trials in Alzheimer’s disease (see www.madison.com/wsj/home/biz/29568).
- Jill Kolesar (PPD) has been awarded the single “mini-sabbatical” funded by the Hematology/Oncology group of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy for 2008. She will spend much of August at the University of Minnesota studying population pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic modeling as it relates to oncology pharmacotherapy and clinical trial design and data analysis.
- Eva Vivian (PPD) successfully competed for one of the pilot grants from the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) in this second round of funding.
- Beth Martin (PPD) was commended for her participation and exceptional student mentoring during the recent 10th annual Undergraduate Symposium.
- Barry Gidal (PPD) has been selected as the United States Pharmacopeia Convention Officer Representative for the UW.
- Dave Kreling (SAS) and alum and co-author Dr. Lisa Guirguis received the 2008 Jennings Murphy Award from PSW, which recognizes the best paper published during a calendar year in the Journal of the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin.
- Congratulations for Mike Pitterle (PPD/IIT) and interdisciplinary colleagues for garnering an educational grant of almost $100,000 for their proposal to the Technology-Enhanced Learning Committee to create virtual patient cases as teaching tools across the health sciences schools.
- Likewise to Beth Martin (PPD) for successful funding of an “Engage Award: Technology-Enhanced Collaborative Group Work” to assist with managing the DPH-1 students during their IPPEs. As you might expect from the title, Mike played a key role here as well, with collaboration by Marty Kieser (PPD/Exp Ed) and Lauren Shawl (IIT).
- And more congratulations are definitely in order for Weiping Tang (PharmSci) whose NIH R21 application in collaboration with Cris Bragg at Mass General appears very fundable indeed! This collaboration has already yielded funding from the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation.
In conjunction with our 125th anniversary, the SOP hosted the 2008 US-Thai Pharmacy Consortium in July, a long-standing collaboration between the schools of pharmacy in Thailand and many here in the States. Just before the meeting, we entertained a delegation of nine faculty from Silpakorn University. For the Consortium itself, we had a wonderful gathering of almost 70 people (28 from Thailand) here to advance our collective discussions, to learn and grow from each other’s experiences, to celebrate the past successes of the Consortium, and to shape its future. There was a ceremonial signing of a new Memorandum of Agreement for another 15 years held at Olbrich Gardens which houses the Thai pavilion, a gift to UW-Madison from the Thai government and the Thai Chapter of the Wisconsin Alumni Association…a symbol of the long-standing relationship between UW-Madison and Thailand that has been so productive in pharmacy and lots of other fields. The vision is to continue to enhance our student and faculty exchange possibilities and to expand further into graduate education and research opportunities for interested faculty and students. This was an incredible event to organize and host, and I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to the planning committee: Curt Johnson (PPD emeritus, chair), Jim De Muth (ESP), Connie Kraus (PPD), Dave Kreling (SAS), Chuck Lauhon (PharmSci), Suntaree Watcharadamrongkun (SAS grad student), Pam French (Alumni Relations), and Diane Stojanovich (Communications). So many people worked behind the scenes as well…Mike Pitterle and Chris Spencer (IIT) ensuring the computers and A/V equipment behaved, Laurie Leininger (Dean’s Office) running around for last minute details, Pam Palmer (SAS) and several students jumping in where needed. Thanks to everyone who made this such a wonderful experience for our guests and a valuable education- and research-oriented conference.
Immediately after the UW-Thai Consortium came the annual American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) meeting in Chicago. The UW SOP was very admirably represented by faculty speakers, poster presenters, session facilitators, SIG members/chairs, delegates, attendees, and on and on. Karen Kopacek (PPD) was specially honored as the UW Student Senate Teacher of the Year. Thank you for continuing to make Wisconsin a national leader in so many areas of pharmacy education, research, outreach, and practice as evidenced at a conference like this. Right after AACP, the Big 10 pharmacy deans gathered at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) College of Pharmacy for our annual meeting. (We were bumped from Big 10 Headquarters for the football meetings.) As it turned out, UIC was hosting the Midwest Meeting of Social and Administrative Pharmacy at the same time with most of our SAS faculty in attendance.
We then had the honor of hosting Dr. Qasim Ahmed Salim Al Ryami from Nizwa University in Oman who attended the AACP meeting and then visited with Connie Kraus and others here at UW-Madison to explore collaborative mechanisms for his university and country to advance pharmacy education and practice.
In the alumni, donor, and friend category:
- 25th anniversary/People & Programs (P&P) alumni gatherings continued in July:
- Linda Halsey (Development) and I attended a beautiful reception and dinner for alumni and friends in the San Francisco Bay Area hosted by alum and BOV member Hy Mitcher and his wife Myrna. What a perfect evening to celebrate the past of the SOP and talk about its future!
- I had a chance to say a few words and show our 125th anniversary video at the 25th anniversary reunion of VA residents held in July. Not all Badgers, of course, but a lot are alums of the School.
- While I couldn’t stay long, I also had a chance to spend a few minutes at the 45th anniversary reunion of UWHC residents also held in July. Again, many, many Badgers among the group.
- Alum Dave Sanders renewed his commitment to support three scholarships for students with military backgrounds for 2008-09.
- Alum Bill Reay kindly hosted my visit to Physican’s Plus where I learned about their business, the value of their pharmacy staff, and how much they appreciate the students we send them on clerkships…always great to hear!
All the best! Jeanette