McFadden: Pharmacy accreditation is major milestone

Manchester University President Dave McFadden sent out the following email to members of the University community on Monday, July 11.

Friends,

It is with deep joy that I share with you news of a major milestone at Manchester University: Our Pharmacy Program is now fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE). 

In March, you may recall, a team from ACPE visited the Fort Wayne campus to perform a comprehensive evaluation of our program, measuring it against 30 pharmacy accreditation standards. During an exit interview that week with Raylene Rospond, vice president and dean, the ACPE team indicated that it would recommend full accreditation for Manchester. We received official notification of that status today.

It has been a long journey and there are many people to thank, including Raylene and Tommy Smith, assistant dean for assessment and accreditation, who led the self-study process, and all of our pharmacy faculty and staff who participated in preparing the report.

We remain forever grateful to Lilly Endowment Inc. and its generous gift that enabled us to launch this program and build the Fort Wayne campus at a level of quality and completeness that would not have been possible otherwise.

We are grateful as well to President Emerita Jo Young Switzer, who led the addition of the Fort Wayne campus and the Doctor of Pharmacy program during her transformative tenure.

So many people made a leap of faith to join us on this journey—our generous donors, the Board of Trustees, faculty, staff and, especially our students. Full accreditation must be particularly heartening to them. They chose Manchester and we delivered to them a high-quality, fully accredited pharmacy education that is equipping them for lives of ability and conviction that will change the world.

As Jo likes to say, “They didn’t tell us we couldn’t do it, so we did.” 
Thank you and congratulations to everyone!

Dave McFadden
President

Manchester University, with campuses in North Manchester and Fort Wayne, Ind., offers more than 60 areas of academic study to 1,500 students in undergraduate programs, a Master of Science in Pharmacogenomics, a Master of Athletic Training and a four-year professional Doctor of Pharmacy.  Learn more about the private, northern Indiana school at www.manchester.edu.