- Joined
- Oct 20, 2005
- Messages
- 707
- Reaction score
- 2
Hey all -
This story was in the San Antonio Express News this morning - interesting news about the accreditation status of these two schools. 🙂
A tale of two pharmacy schools
Gloria Padilla
Express-News Editorial Writer
Texas is in the enviable position of having two new pharmacy schools ready to open their doors a public institution in Kingsville and a private school in San Antonio.
Unfortunately, state politics threaten to undermine the Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy on the campus of Texas A&M-Kingsville, the first professional school in South Texas, and soil its credibility.
The short, turbulent history of the beleaguered Kingsville pharmacy school stands in stark contrast to that of the Feik Pharmacy School, the private school at the University of the Incarnate Word, which appears to be leading a charmed existence by comparison.
The biggest problem at the Rangel College has been funding.
The situation has gotten so bad, university President Rumaldo Juarez said last week the pharmacy school will not open in the fall unless he receives a funding commitment of at least $5 million within the next 10 days.
The Kingsville pharmacy program has faced an uphill funding battle, like most other higher education efforts in South Texas aimed at increasing the number of Hispanic college graduates.
While powerful state leaders such as House Speaker Tom Craddick channel funds to enhance higher education programs in their districts in wealthier regions of the state, many projects in impoverished areas remain underfunded, mostly due to lack of political clout in Austin.
Hundreds of pre-pharmacy students across the country are anxiously awaiting the scheduled opening of the state's two newest pharmacy schools in Kingsville and San Antonio, slated for next fall.
Ironically, the Kingsville school has a gorgeous three-story, 62,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art building ready for students but no money with which to start classes.
The Feik School of Pharmacy at the University of the Incarnate Word has funding and students but no building. For the first year, students will meet in a converted warehouse in the Medical Center area.
Groundbreaking for the new building, which will be constructed west of the main campus at the corner of Hildebrand and Devine, is scheduled for May.
The Feik School received more than 400 applications for its 75 openings.
So far, 1,000 applicants have applied for the 70 slots at the Rangel College of Pharmacy. The application deadline is Feb. 15. Many of the applicants at both schools have come from out of state.
The Feik School of Pharmacy and Rangel College of Pharmacy have both hired deans and recruited faculty.
Funding for the Feik School has come from private donations, including a generous seven-figure gift from UIW trustee John Feik of San Antonio, president of DFB Pharmaceuticals.
Funding for the Rangel College has not come so easily. The majestic new building on the edge of the Kingsville campus was constructed with tuition revenue bonds.
During each of the past three legislative sessions, a few hundred thousand dollars have been allocated by the state to allow for planning. A $3.1 million loan in late 2004 from the A&M System has allowed it to recruit faculty and staff and buy some equipment.
Funding to allow the school to open its doors to students has become a major issue that has frustrated and angered many civic and political leaders in South Texas.
The school had 30 students ready to start the pharmacy program last fall, but the opening had to be delayed because the Legislature failed to provide funding for it in the state budget. Eighteen of the students are still clinging to the hope of starting classes in Kingsville, but the others have moved on.
Admission into a pharmacy program is highly competitive. There are only 93 schools providing pharmacy education in the United States, four of them in Texas, according to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. The Texas schools are at Texas Southern, Texas Tech, the University of Houston and the University of Texas-Austin.
The need for pharmacists is tremendous. Even if the two schools open in the fall, the shortage of pharmacists in South Texas will not be eased for another decade or two.
There is a shortage of 8,000 pharmacists in the nation, and that could jump as high as 140,000 by 2020. Texas schools graduate only 365 pharmacy students a year.
For the longest time, the number of pharmacy schools in the country was stagnant at about 76, and then 20 years ago new schools started emerging.
At the beginning of fall 2005, there were 85 fully accredited schools and eight working toward that goal, not including the Feik School, which received pre-candidate status a few weeks ago.
The Kingsville school is working on attaining that status, but it has had to delay visits from the accreditation team twice already because the funding to carry out its mission has not been allocated.
Juarez plans to cancel a third visit, scheduled for mid-April, if the funding does not come through.
Accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, or ACPE, is serious business just ask Feik School of Pharmacy Dean Arcelia Johnson-Fannin.
She has been working on that effort since May. Her team successfully completed the process necessary to attain pre-candidate status for the Feik School last month.
Candidacy status will come when the first students are enrolled. Full accreditation is not granted until the school graduates its first class.
The future of the UIW pharmacy schools looks rosy. Johnson-Fannin is completing her faculty recruiting, a committee is reviewing student applications, and her new building is scheduled for completion in May 2007.
The first class of UIW pharmacy students will be notified of their admission in April.
Fannin-Johnson is sympathetic toward the plight of her colleagues in Kingsville. She toured the Kingsville pharmacy building with the architects planning the UIW building, and she said she was impressed.
"It is beyond ridiculous that they haven't got the money," she said.
The possibility that the Kingsville school will have to cancel an April visit scheduled by the accreditation team worries Juarez. It will be the third time he has had to do that because the money from the state has not been forthcoming.
"We expect some consequences as a result of canceling for the third time. It doesn't sit well in terms of credibility," Juarez said.
He also worries about the lost hope among the students and the morale of the faculty.
Indra Reddy, dean of the Rangel College, has been diligently working on the accreditation of his school.
On the shelf behind his desk on the first floor of the pharmacy school building are dozens of binders with the materials and documentation they will need to present to the accreditation council when and if they ever get an opportunity.
He is only too aware that the only area in which the school is lacking is the final item on a 30-item list of requisites for accreditation financial resources.
"We've done everything that we can do, we've done more than our share," Reddy said.
There had been hope that funding for the Kingsville school would come in a special session on school finance.
The governor's decision to wait until after the March primaries to call a special session offers little hope for Juarez, who plans to stop the student application process on Feb. 15 if he does not have a financial commitment.
The only other funding option is through the Texas Legislative Budget Board, which funds items in between special session.
The LBB is composed of four state representatives and four senators. The chairmanship alternates between the lieutenant governor and House speaker. Craddick is currently the chairman.
This story was in the San Antonio Express News this morning - interesting news about the accreditation status of these two schools. 🙂
A tale of two pharmacy schools
Gloria Padilla
Express-News Editorial Writer
Texas is in the enviable position of having two new pharmacy schools ready to open their doors a public institution in Kingsville and a private school in San Antonio.
Unfortunately, state politics threaten to undermine the Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy on the campus of Texas A&M-Kingsville, the first professional school in South Texas, and soil its credibility.
The short, turbulent history of the beleaguered Kingsville pharmacy school stands in stark contrast to that of the Feik Pharmacy School, the private school at the University of the Incarnate Word, which appears to be leading a charmed existence by comparison.
The biggest problem at the Rangel College has been funding.
The situation has gotten so bad, university President Rumaldo Juarez said last week the pharmacy school will not open in the fall unless he receives a funding commitment of at least $5 million within the next 10 days.
The Kingsville pharmacy program has faced an uphill funding battle, like most other higher education efforts in South Texas aimed at increasing the number of Hispanic college graduates.
While powerful state leaders such as House Speaker Tom Craddick channel funds to enhance higher education programs in their districts in wealthier regions of the state, many projects in impoverished areas remain underfunded, mostly due to lack of political clout in Austin.
Hundreds of pre-pharmacy students across the country are anxiously awaiting the scheduled opening of the state's two newest pharmacy schools in Kingsville and San Antonio, slated for next fall.
Ironically, the Kingsville school has a gorgeous three-story, 62,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art building ready for students but no money with which to start classes.
The Feik School of Pharmacy at the University of the Incarnate Word has funding and students but no building. For the first year, students will meet in a converted warehouse in the Medical Center area.
Groundbreaking for the new building, which will be constructed west of the main campus at the corner of Hildebrand and Devine, is scheduled for May.
The Feik School received more than 400 applications for its 75 openings.
So far, 1,000 applicants have applied for the 70 slots at the Rangel College of Pharmacy. The application deadline is Feb. 15. Many of the applicants at both schools have come from out of state.
The Feik School of Pharmacy and Rangel College of Pharmacy have both hired deans and recruited faculty.
Funding for the Feik School has come from private donations, including a generous seven-figure gift from UIW trustee John Feik of San Antonio, president of DFB Pharmaceuticals.
Funding for the Rangel College has not come so easily. The majestic new building on the edge of the Kingsville campus was constructed with tuition revenue bonds.
During each of the past three legislative sessions, a few hundred thousand dollars have been allocated by the state to allow for planning. A $3.1 million loan in late 2004 from the A&M System has allowed it to recruit faculty and staff and buy some equipment.
Funding to allow the school to open its doors to students has become a major issue that has frustrated and angered many civic and political leaders in South Texas.
The school had 30 students ready to start the pharmacy program last fall, but the opening had to be delayed because the Legislature failed to provide funding for it in the state budget. Eighteen of the students are still clinging to the hope of starting classes in Kingsville, but the others have moved on.
Admission into a pharmacy program is highly competitive. There are only 93 schools providing pharmacy education in the United States, four of them in Texas, according to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. The Texas schools are at Texas Southern, Texas Tech, the University of Houston and the University of Texas-Austin.
The need for pharmacists is tremendous. Even if the two schools open in the fall, the shortage of pharmacists in South Texas will not be eased for another decade or two.
There is a shortage of 8,000 pharmacists in the nation, and that could jump as high as 140,000 by 2020. Texas schools graduate only 365 pharmacy students a year.
For the longest time, the number of pharmacy schools in the country was stagnant at about 76, and then 20 years ago new schools started emerging.
At the beginning of fall 2005, there were 85 fully accredited schools and eight working toward that goal, not including the Feik School, which received pre-candidate status a few weeks ago.
The Kingsville school is working on attaining that status, but it has had to delay visits from the accreditation team twice already because the funding to carry out its mission has not been allocated.
Juarez plans to cancel a third visit, scheduled for mid-April, if the funding does not come through.
Accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, or ACPE, is serious business just ask Feik School of Pharmacy Dean Arcelia Johnson-Fannin.
She has been working on that effort since May. Her team successfully completed the process necessary to attain pre-candidate status for the Feik School last month.
Candidacy status will come when the first students are enrolled. Full accreditation is not granted until the school graduates its first class.
The future of the UIW pharmacy schools looks rosy. Johnson-Fannin is completing her faculty recruiting, a committee is reviewing student applications, and her new building is scheduled for completion in May 2007.
The first class of UIW pharmacy students will be notified of their admission in April.
Fannin-Johnson is sympathetic toward the plight of her colleagues in Kingsville. She toured the Kingsville pharmacy building with the architects planning the UIW building, and she said she was impressed.
"It is beyond ridiculous that they haven't got the money," she said.
The possibility that the Kingsville school will have to cancel an April visit scheduled by the accreditation team worries Juarez. It will be the third time he has had to do that because the money from the state has not been forthcoming.
"We expect some consequences as a result of canceling for the third time. It doesn't sit well in terms of credibility," Juarez said.
He also worries about the lost hope among the students and the morale of the faculty.
Indra Reddy, dean of the Rangel College, has been diligently working on the accreditation of his school.
On the shelf behind his desk on the first floor of the pharmacy school building are dozens of binders with the materials and documentation they will need to present to the accreditation council when and if they ever get an opportunity.
He is only too aware that the only area in which the school is lacking is the final item on a 30-item list of requisites for accreditation financial resources.
"We've done everything that we can do, we've done more than our share," Reddy said.
There had been hope that funding for the Kingsville school would come in a special session on school finance.
The governor's decision to wait until after the March primaries to call a special session offers little hope for Juarez, who plans to stop the student application process on Feb. 15 if he does not have a financial commitment.
The only other funding option is through the Texas Legislative Budget Board, which funds items in between special session.
The LBB is composed of four state representatives and four senators. The chairmanship alternates between the lieutenant governor and House speaker. Craddick is currently the chairman.
