Celebrating the UMKC School of Pharmacy at MSU
Students, state officials and university administrators and faculty celebrated the grand opening of one of the newest additions to the University of Missouri-Kansas City — three hours south in Springfield.
The UMKC School of Pharmacy at Missouri State University opened this semester in a transformed historic Brick City building. This is the third site for the school’s PharmD program, the practice-level degree for pharmacists. UMKC School of Pharmacy Dean Russell Melchert said the expansion is a targeted effort to address a shortage of healthcare providers, including pharmacists, in rural Missouri.
“There is nothing more mission-oriented we can do than what we are doing today — providing something of lasting and indispensable value to the people of Missouri,” said UMKC Chancellor Leo E. Morton. “And none of us could have accomplished this alone. We joined with the people and agencies who found the will and the way to make it happen: Governor Nixon and his staff, the Missouri Legislature, Missouri State University, the University of Missouri System and our alumni.”
Currently UMKC’s School of Pharmacy admits about 125 students a year, out of 600 applicants.
The program at Missouri State will expand the incoming class by about 25 percent.
The new site allows students to register in the UMKC School of Pharmacy program but complete coursework on the Missouri State campus. This university partnership allows students to take the same courses and earn the same UMKC degree as their counterparts in Kansas City and Columbia at the University of Missouri.
Reviewed 2014-10-31