The USF College of Pharmacy is on target to graduate its first students in 2015, almost eight years after Florida lawmakers and academic leaders sought help from the University of South Florida in 2007-08 to create the new school.
"Our College of Pharmacy is developing a new model of health delivery; in some instances, we will be creating new practitioners that currently are not in existence,'' says Dean Kevin B. Sneed. Older schools of pharmacy around the nation are looking to replicate some of USF's most innovative programs, he adds.
So it was with particular outrage that
USF and the Tampa Bay region reacted when state Sen. J.D. Alexander of Polk County and the Florida Senate budget committee suggested eliminating the College as part of a 58 percent reduction in funding for USF during the 2012 legislative session.
The ensuing debate has catapulted the
College of Pharmacy into a news spotlight. USF President Judy Genshaft, faculty, staff, students and alumni are voicing their support and rallying others to change minds in Tallahassee.
Take a look at the attached video and
another at this link to learn more about why the College of Pharmacy exists at USF and the important work it is doing.
Diane Egner is the publisher and managing editor of 83 Degrees Media. Comments? Contact 83 Degrees.
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Diane Egner is a community leader and award-winning journalist with more than four decades of experience reporting and writing about the Tampa Bay Area of Florida. She serves on the boards of the University of South Florida Zimmerman School of Advertising & Mass Communications Advisory Council, The Institute for Research in Art (Graphicstudio, the Contemporary Art Museum, and USF’s Public Art Program) Community Advisory Council, Sing Out and Read, and StageWorks Theatre Advisory Council. She also is a member of Leadership Florida and the Athena Society. A graduate of the University of Minnesota with a BA in journalism, she won the top statewide award for editorial writing from the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors while at The Tampa Tribune and received special recognition by the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists for creative work as Content Director at WUSF Public Media. Past accomplishments and community service include leadership positions with Tampa Tiger Bay Club, USF Women in Leadership & Philanthropy (WLP), Alpha House of Tampa Bay, Awesome Tampa Bay, Florida Kinship Center, AIA Tampa Bay, Powerstories, Arts Council of Hillsborough County, and the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce. Diane and her husband, Sandy Rief, live in Tampa.