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Capital campaign builds on pharmacy school’s promise
by Dabney Weems

The new 26,000-square-foot building at UMMC will feature a technology-driven classroom, small group classrooms, and laboratory space for faculty research.

The University of Mississippi (UM) School of Pharmacy formally launched its $5 million “Promises to Keep” capital campaign.

Funds raised will be used to help build a new pharmacy school building at The University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) in Jackson and to increase endowments for student scholarships and faculty support.

“The success of our capital campaign is essential to the continuing success of the School of Pharmacy,” said pharmacy Dean Barbara G. Wells. “In these harsh economic times, it is even more important for those of us who are able to step up and support our educational and religious institutions and our charities. If we do not, then literally decades of progress can be lost in a short period of time, and the most vulnerable people and programs will suffer.”

The new 26,000-square-foot building, slated to break ground later this year, will feature a technology-driven classroom, small group meeting rooms to enhance the problem-based learning curriculum, and laboratory space for faculty research.

Besides classroom and research space, the facility will include a student lounge area and space for student association meetings. The new facility will allow pharmacy students to have direct access to faculty, preceptors, and administrators under one roof.

The additional space will allow for a 28 percent increase in the pharmacy school’s enrollment, to help address the critical shortage of pharmacists. The new building also is imperative for the school’s continuing accreditation, as its national accrediting agency found existing facilities at the Jackson Medical Mall to be inadequate and out of compliance with both current and new accreditation standards.

“In addition to meeting accreditation standards and allowing us to continue the enrollment increase, the new pharmacy building at the Medical Center will improve the morale of students and faculty immeasurably,” Wells said. “It will allow us to integrate our students into the Medical Center environment and allow our students to learn, work, and socialize in a truly inter-professional setting.”

The campaign also focuses on increasing endowment funds benefiting student scholarships. Eighty-two percent of the 2009 Doctor of Pharmacy class graduated with student loan debt averaging more than $49,000. Scholarship endowments provide incentives necessary to attract promising students as well as assist students with financial burdens. One goal of the campaign is to raise $1.5 million in endowments for merit and need-based scholarships and fellowships.

“It is imperative, especially during these times of economic challenge and continuously escalating tuition costs, that we exhaust all efforts to assist our students in successfully completing their professional degree program while minimizing their debt burden,” said Marvin C. Wilson, associate dean for academic and student affairs. “It is indeed tragic, in these times of practitioner shortage, when the completion of the degree program is jeopardized or, worse yet, denied by the need to work full time to support oneself and/or dependents. Affordability should never be the factor depriving a qualified individual the opportunity to achieve a professional degree.”

Endowments raised to support faculty will allow the school to attract and retain the best and brightest professors, clinicians, and researchers.

“Although our pharmacy school is 100 years old, we have no fully funded endowed professorships or endowed chairs,” Wells said. “These instruments allow us to hire and retain the best teachers and researchers. I can think of no better way to support both students and faculty, or to make a gift that perpetually supports and strengthens teaching and research programs, than to establish an endowed professorship or endowed chair.

“Indeed, the capital campaign is about taking the steps to ensure that we keep the promises made long ago,” Wells said. “We owe it to our students to provide them with the very best education available anywhere. Our faculty members are dedicated to doing their part and more. Our students are highly motivated to achieve academic success and to better the lives of those they serve. In spite of difficult economic times, by working together, opportunities will abound for us to continue our growth, to elevate the practice of pharmacy, and to improve the care of our patients.”

For more information, visit www.umpharmacycampaign.org, or contact Sarah Hollis at shollis@olemiss.edu or 800-340-9542. For more information on the School of Pharmacy, go to www.pharmacy.olemiss.edu.

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