Concordia University System (CUS) schools in Mequon, Wis., and Portland, Ore., are making plans to offer the first CUS programs in pharmacy and law.
Concordia University Wisconsin, Mequon, has named two deans for its new School of Pharmacy that’s slated to open in fall 2010. Former State Representative Curt Gielow, who began his career as a pharmacist, will serve as the school’s executive dean and assistant professor of pharmacy practice, and Dr. Dean Arneson, formerly of the College of Pharmacy at the University of Oklahoma, Tulsa, will be academic dean and associate professor of pharmacy administration.
In the school’s preliminary plan for the new pharmacy program, students will take a minimum of two years of pre-pharmacy courses before being accepted into the four-year professional pharmacy program. They will graduate with a doctor of pharmacy degree.
Concordia, Mequon, is planning to accept 50 to 75 students per class. Admission requirements and tuition rates are still being finalized.
Currently, the state’s only pharmacy school is located at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, which graduates about 130 students per class. However, between 300 and 400 students reportedly apply to the program each year.
Concordia University President Patrick T. Ferry said he hopes the new pharmacy school “will produce many graduates who will remain dedicated to Concordia’s mission to develop in mind, body, and spirit for service to Christ and the world, and that these graduates will return to their urban or rural roots, where pharmacists are often at a real shortage.”
The Board of Regents for Concordia University, Portland, voted July 16 to authorize the university’s creation of a law program in Boise, Idaho, subject to the acquisition of start-up capital and approval of a dean.
Boise is one of the few major metropolitan areas in the country without a law school, according to a Concordia, Portland, news release, and the university has historically drawn students from Idaho and throughout the Northwest.
Concordia, Portland, has not yet released a timetable for opening the law school, but says it will “support the needs and aspirations of college graduates and the business, legal, and public policy communities of the entire state.”
For more information about any of the Synod’s 10 CUS schools nationwide, visit the Web site of the Board for University Education at www.lcms.org/?886.
Posted July 24, 2008
