Officials back MU pharmacy school

HUNTINGTON - The 80 students in the inaugural class of Marshall University's new School of Pharmacy are expected to do more than fight for a job when they graduate in 2016.

School and local officials also hope they will fight the state's rampant prescription drug abuse problems.

"You guys are on the front lines," said Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, speaking to students during a celebration for the new school Tuesday.

More than 200 people came to the ceremony, including local community leaders and a slew of politicians. University officials have worked since 2009 to make the program a reality, President Stephen Kopp said.

"There are times during this process when you could have folded the tent and said, 'Oh, the political pressure is too great,' " Kopp told the packed tent outside the new school.

The deans of the pharmacy schools at West Virginia University and the University of Charleston have both questioned the need for a third school in the state.

"The number that is important is the availability of jobs and that we've seen our graduates having a harder time landing employment because the market is much tighter," UC Dean Michelle Easton said in a 2011 feasibility study.

The number of students graduating from WVU's program has increased from 60 in 2002 to 82 in 2012, according to university data. The number staying in the state has fallen slightly, from 68 percent to 61 percent.

Kopp and others maintain Marshall's school will offer something different. Students will participate in drug take-back programs and conduct research with the medical and health science schools, collaboration that Paul Hill, chancellor of the state Higher Education Policy Commission, said is innovative.

"It takes teams of people to solve really big problems," Hill said.

Read the original:
Officials back MU pharmacy school