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Pharmacy school idea got its start in Nevada
BY KRISTEN CDNSILLIO PACIFIC BUSINESS NEWS
Controversy over business practices at the Hawaii College of Pharmacy in Kapolei can be traced to the doors of a pharmacy school in Nevada. That's where Denise "DeeDee" Criswell and David Monroe, founders of the Hawaii College of Pharmacy; got the idea to start a lucrative business in a high-
demand profession, which ultimately would attract 240 students and generate $6.72 million in tuition the first year.
Monroe, a Kalihi native formerly known as
David Yacas, was a librarian, and Criswell, whose married name when she was in Nevada was
Denise Nakajima, was financial officer at the former Nevada College of Pharmacy, where they witnessed the startup of a new pharmacy program. The non-profit college, which started with 40 students in January, 2001, is now called the University of Southern Nevada and is accredited by the national Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education. Students at the unaccredited private Hawaii College of Pharmacy, operated by Nevada-based for-profit Pacific Educational Services, say they were led to believe the colleges were affiliated and that they could transfer between the schools.
The Hawaii Office of Consumer Protection is investigating the Hawaii pharmacy school for alleged unfair and deceptive business practices after receiving numerous complaints from students who have paid $28,000 each in annual tuition for a three-year doctorate program. The college was denied accreditation because of its unprecedented first-year class enrollment.
The same company that founded the pharmacy school also plans to open a
dental college in Kapolei.
"Monroe himself told me before I started that the school was affiliated with the Nevada College of Pharmacy and that if anything were to go wrong
students could transfer over to the Nevada college and graduate from there,"
said Tony Mai, 26, former student body president of the Hawaii pharmacy
school. "He said he knew people there and that it was perfectly fine and wouldn't be a problem."
Criswell and Monroe couldn't be reached for comment.
A copy of the Hawaii College of Pharmacy student handbook for 2004-2005,
dated Oct. 4, 2003, states, "During the first year of operations the Hawaii College of Pharmacy along with the Nevada College of Pharmacy will share faculty in all areas of pharmaceutical specialty."
"They told me it was going to be a branch, like a sister school of the Nevada
College of Pharmacy and structured the exact same way," said John Quinn, 22, a former student of the Hawaii school.
The dean of the University of Southern Nevada's College of Pharmacy in
Henderson says the school has never had an affiliation with the Hawaii college and has received and denied at least 20 transfer requests this year from Hawaii students. "There has been a lot of concern on our end that there may be some
misrepresentation regarding any type of relationship between us," said Renee Coffman, dean of the Nevada college. "Their
Web site essentially copied verbatim our Web site at one point. It Ied us to put a disclaimer up on our Web site that we're
not affiliated with the Hawaii College of Pharmacy. The degree of confusion was that extreme that we felt we needed to take action." Coffman said that about three years ago the Nevada school had preliminary plans to create a Hawaii branch and that,
because Monroe was from Hawaii, he came on the initial visits to Hawaii to
look at potential sites. However, the Nevada college decided not to make Hawaii a priority in order to focus on receiving full accreditation.
Criswell and Monroe initially looked at starting the pharmacy school on Maui
and in late 2003 sought the help of former Maui state Sen. Jan Yagi-Buen, who was working for the Maui mayor's office. Yagi-Buen is listed as treasurer in other dissolved Nevada corporations started by Monroe and Criswell, but says
she didn't consent to be a part of any of their businesses.
The Hawaii college founders laterturned their sights on Oahu because they
wouldn't attract as many students on Maui, Yagi-Buen said. "I didn't gain anything monetarily, " she said. "In fact, I put in my own money and a lot of my time. All I wanted was to start something good for our community."
Yagi-Buen says she helped Monroe and Criswell plan the school from October
2003 to April 2004 but left when
she became suspicious of their motives. "I really believed that their intent was to have a good college of pharmacy and to help students out, but when they were talking about tuition, how much they'd charge and then started adding up figures, I started to get suspicious," she said.
"That's one of the biggest reasons why I left; it became a money thing."
Monroe and Criswell, originally from Kentucky, are the
founders of Kentucky-
based nonprofit Pacific Blue Foundation Inc. Both Criswell and Monroe are
founders of dissolved Nevada corporations: Pacific Blue Venture Corp., Pacific
Blue Educational Services, Mid Pacific Educational Services and Pacific Blue
Holdings Inc.
[email protected] I 955-8036
