2. Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Program - School of Pharmacy

2. Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Program 

A. Background / Quality and Administrative Structure of the Pharmaceutical Sciences Program 

The history and evolution of the School of Pharmacy is provided in Section 1 of this self‐study. 

As described, the Pharmaceutical Sciences Program was born out of a series of gradual 

consolidation steps that began in 1988 from what was previously a disparate set of programs 

organized loosely into “curricular areas.” Prior to 1994, the School was organized into six 

divisions: Pharmaceutics, Pharmaceutical Biochemistry/Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacology, 

Pharmacy Practice, Social and Administrative Pharmacy, and Extension. As the result of the 

1991 self‐study of School of Pharmacy graduate programs and a strategic planning retreat in 

1994, the Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Biochemistry, Pharmacology, and 

Pharmaceutics programs were consolidated into one graduate program in Pharmaceutical 

Sciences. This consolidation was formally approved by the University of Wisconsin System in 

March of 1998. The reasoning for the consolidation, outlined in a report from the 

reorganization committee to the faculty, was: 

• To form critical masses of interdisciplinary faculty that can advance pharmaceutical 

research and education, 

• To align with proposed graduate education restructuring, 

• To create distinctive units on the campus which deal with the drug development process 

in its broadest sense, and 

• To be able to respond more effectively and efficiently to the changing educational and 

research environments. 

In their report to the Graduate School on the proposed consolidation in 1997, then‐Dean Mel 

Weinswig and Assoc. Dean Bill Mellon brought in the interdisciplinary aspect of the three core 

areas of Drug Discovery, Drug Action and Drug Delivery as a unifying concept in the new 

Division structure. Since that time, the Pharmaceutical Sciences Division (PSD) has been divided 

into three core areas of Drug Discovery, Drug Action, and Drug Delivery. Collectively, they 

encompass the disciplines of medicinal chemistry, pharmaceutical biochemistry, 

pharmaceutics, biotechnology, pharmacology and toxicology. 

Mission 

The mission of the PSD is to integrate these cores for increased collaborative interaction and 

graduate student development. This mission is accomplished through innovative research, 

education of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, and service to the 

professional, scientific, and public communities. The Division’s mission statement was adopted 

in January 1996: 

The mission of the Division of Pharmaceutical Sciences is to discover, to teach, 

and to apply knowledge in the three fields of Drug Discovery, Drug Action, and 

Drug Delivery. This mission is accomplished through the education of 

Pharm Sci Graduate Program 2-1

undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, by conducting innovative 

research, and by providing service to the professional, scientific, and public 

communities. The pharmaceutical sciences embrace the traditional disciplines of 

medicinal chemistry, pharmaceutical biochemistry, biotechnology, 

pharmacology, toxicology, and pharmaceutics. 

Program Quality 

Rankings for Pharmaceutical Sciences programs are not as common as other graduate programs 

in the U.S. The National Research Council (NRC) rankings, which are among the most 

respected, historically have not included Pharmaceutical Sciences in its reviews. Pharmacy 

graduate programs were included in the most recent (2006) NRC review and our program was 

also evaluated by a survey although results have not been released as of this writing (August 

2009). 

A newer analytical system of rankings sponsored jointly by SUNY Stony Brook and Academic 

Analytics, Inc., uses the “Faculty Scholarly Productivity (FSP) Index.” The FSP Index measures 

productivity based on publications, citations, research funding and awards and honors. This 

approach, described in November 16, 2007 issue of Chronicle of Higher Education, relies less on 

qualitative or subjective metrics and more on quantitative data. In 2006‐7, this group ranked 

7,300 graduate programs in a wide range of scientific disciplines. Our program was ranked fifth 

in the U.S. among Pharmaceutical Sciences graduate programs. The top ten Pharmaceutical 

Sciences related programs from the study are listed in Table 1. Based on this report, which 

largely represents faculty achievement and resources, our program resides in the top tier of 

Pharmaceutical Sciences programs in the U.S. 

Table 2‐1. Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Program Rankings 2006‐07 based on FSP Index 

Rank 

University (Program) 

1 U. Utah (Medicinal Chemistry) 

2 U. Michigan ‐ Ann Arbor (Pharmaceutical Sciences) 

3 U. Illinois ‐ Chicago (Medicinal Chemistry) 

4 U. Washington (Pharmaceutics) 

5 U. Wisconsin ‐ Madison (Pharmaceutical Sciences) 

6 U. Pittsburgh (Pharmaceutical Sciences) 

7 Mayo Grad School (Molecular Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics) 

8 Rutgers ‐ New Brunswick (Pharmaceutical Sciences) 

9 U. Kansas (Pharmaceutical Chemistry) 

10 Northeastern U. (Pharmaceutical Sciences) 

Located at: http://www.academicanalytics.com/TopBioBiomedSci2006‐07.html 


Administrative Structure 

School Administration 

The administrative structure of the School of Pharmacy is described in detail in Section I of this 

self‐study. Briefly, the Dean presides over each Division of the School (Pharmaceutical 

Sciences, Pharmacy Practice, Social and Administrative Sciences in Pharmacy, and Extension 

Services in Pharmacy). Division Chairs report to her for approval in hiring and programmatic 

decisions. The Executive Committee consists of all tenured faculty, as defined by UW Faculty 

Policies and Procedures, and clinical (CHS) faculty that serve an advisory role. The Dean’s 

Advisory Council (DAC), which includes the Division Chairs and all Associate Deans, discusses 

School policy and future planning. The Academic Planning Council (APC) an elected body 

composed of representatives from the School’s academic Divisions; it considers educational 

programming and planning issues. As exists for the University as a whole, there is considerable 

faculty self‐governance and in many cases the Dean’s role is to facilitate decision making. 

Division Administration 

The Pharmaceutical Sciences Division led by a Chair who is elected by the faculty on a limited 

term basis with nominations open at the end of each term. Prof. William Mellon served in this 

capacity for multiple terms from 1998‐2004. During this time Dr. Mellon was also the Assoc. 

Dean for Research and Graduate Affairs. In 2004, Dr. Mellon accepted an Assoc. Dean position 

in the Graduate School (75% effort) and Dr. Richard Peterson was elected Chair. A Vice‐Chair 

position, held by Prof. Jon Thorson, was introduced at this time to assist the Chair and focus on 

the graduate program. 

The current administrative structure in Pharmaceutical Sciences consists of a Chair (Prof. Dick 

Peterson), who has been elected by Division faculty to his second 3‐year term, and two Vice‐ 

Chairs (Assoc. Profs. Ron Burnette and Charles Lauhon) who were nominated by the Chair and 

approved by Division faculty vote in 2007. This structure is designed such that each 

membership of the leadership team represents one of the three cores of division faculty. The 

aim is to enhance efficient communication between the faculty and the division leadership in 

regards to teaching assignments, program changes and hiring initiatives. 

In addition to these leadership roles, there are a number of standing and ad hoc PSD 

committees (brief information in Table 2; full list in Appendix 1, p. A2‐3) that are necessary for 

running Division business. When new initiatives, such as hiring, are approved by the Dean, 

committees are appointed by the Dean with input from the Division Chair and Vice‐Chairs. The 

Chair and Vice‐Chairs also suggest faculty members to the Dean for appointment on Schoolwide 

committees, including the Academic Planning Council (APC), Curriculum Committee, 

Student Promotion/Progress Committee and many others. 


Table 2‐2. Administrative Positions Relevant to the Pharmaceutical Sciences Division 

Pharmaceutical Sciences Division Administration (Fall 2009) 

Division Chair: Richard Peterson (Drug Action Core) 

Vice Chairs: Ron Burnette (Drug Delivery Core 

Charles Lauhon (Drug Discovery Core) 

Administrators: Joni Mitchell 

Ken Niemeyer 

Grants Manager: Joan Palmer 

Major Division‐level Committees (2008‐09 rosters appear in Appendix 1, p. A2‐3) 

Graduate Program Admissions Committee 

Mentoring Committees (for Profs. Bashirullah, Tang, Collier, Marker, Xiong, Bugni) 

Space Committee (Chair and Vice Chairs plus Pharmacy Practice Division rep.) 

Search Committees (currently: Drug Discovery, Drug Delivery) 

School‐Level Administrative Positions Relevant to Pharmaceutical Sciences 

Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs: Ron Burnette 

Associate Dean for Research: 

Warren Heideman 

Assistant Dean for Graduate Studies: Charles Lauhon 

Graduate Program Coordinator: 

Linda Frei 

Several important administrative positions, assigned at the School‐level by the Dean, are held 

by members of the Pharmaceutical Science Division. Persons in these positions are responsible 

for all three graduate programs in the School (i.e., Pharmaceutical Sciences, Social and 

Administrative Sciences in Pharmacy, and Pharmacy‐MS). 

Information Flow within the Division 

The administrative structure of the School and the Division allows for a variety of conduits for 

information flow from the University or the School (or its other divisions) to the Division faculty. 

Since Dean Roberts has a regular appointment with the Provost, University‐level information is 

disseminated directly to the Chair via the monthly Deans Advisory Council (DAC) meetings. 

Because of possible conflicts of interest, it was decided that although the Dean is a member of 

the Pharmaceutical Sciences faculty, she should not attend Division Faculty meetings. DAC 

meetings, then, are an efficient method for information flow from the Provost’s office to the 

Division, especially since several Division faculty are also serve as Associate Deans in the School 

and attend DAC meetings. 

Division meetings of Pharmaceutical Sciences faculty are held regularly (currently monthly), 

with agendas posted in advance to alert faculty of subjects to be discussed. Recent changes to 

the meetings have restricted them to tenure‐track Division and Affiliate faculty only. This policy 

was introduced to assure Division compliance with FPP guidelines concerning the definition of 

“faculty”. 


As stated above, the Vice Chairs are chosen to ensure representation from all three core areas 

of the Division and to enhance communication both to and from the Chair and Dean. The Chair 

and Vice Chairs meet weekly with administrative staff to discuss Division business and set 

agendas for monthly Division faculty meetings. 

Strategic Planning ‐ Division Faculty Retreats 

The Division, at the discretion of the Chair, holds regular faculty retreats. These are typically all 

day off‐site sessions that involve long range planning. The following have been recently 

identified as priority items from these retreats: 

• Future Space Needs 

• Target Areas for Future Faculty Hires 

• Increasing Visibility of Graduate Program for Recruiting 

• New Faculty Orientation for Purposes of Teaching and Climate 

• Increasing Administrative Support for Grants Management and Preparation 

• Identifying Future Graduate and Professional Teaching Needs within Division 

Division strategic priorities are included in Appendix 2 (p. A2‐4). 


B. Recruitment and Prospective Students 

Overview 

In the past ten years, the Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Program has changed significantly 

its approach to recruiting. Before 1996, recruitment was not coordinated and each of the 

programs (Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Pharmaceutics, etc) had its own process, largely via 

faculty contact and direct admits. There was little communication among faculty in regards to 

recruiting. During the late 1990s, recruiting became organized around a recruiting weekend, 

which was coordinated with other biological science departments on campus. In the last five 

years, we have become even more organized internally and no longer coordinate with other 

campus programs. We have an earlier admissions deadline and interview process than most 

other programs and, unlike many programs, defer admission decision until after prospective 

students have visited campus. These changes may explain a significant increase in the 

percentage of acceptances of our admission offers. While we have had mixed success during 

this period, especially with domestic and minority students, our most recent year’s effort has 

been one of our best in terms of both numbers and applicant quality. 

Admissions Process 

The makeup of the Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Admissions Committee (listed in 

Appendix 1, p. A2‐3) is intended to be a blend of faculty and students that reflect the division as 

a whole. For each core, an attempt is made to have both a junior and senior faculty member 

for the purpose of mixing expertise and enthusiasm, as well as for training in assessing 

applicants. Students are a vital part of the committee’s work. They provide ideas for events, 

communication strategies in recruiting (Appendix 3, p. A2‐12) and are a source of feedback 

from and information to the prospective students. The committee meets in early November to 

review the admissions process and discuss strategy, then additional meetings are scheduled as 

shown below until final decisions are made in mid‐February. 

Timeline for Admissions Process 

Table 3 presents the timeline for graduate admissions. It was approved by our 2006‐2007 

Admissions Committee and, except for adjustment of specific dates, continues as our current 

process. In an average year, we bring in 20 domestic (or US‐based international) students and 

extend offers to 14 of them (70%). To this number we supplement with an average of 6 offers 

to international students. Historically, 60% of the domestic students and 80% international 

students (47% overall) accept our offers to give an average entering class size of 8 students. 


Table 2‐3. Graduate Admissions Timeline 

Date 

Activity 

12/1 Application deadline; top 25% based on GRE+GPA will be placed on‐line. 

12/2‐3 Top 25% (or top 40) applications divided into 4 groups by Committee chair. Each 

working group should also review applicants at lower 26‐100% that will be 

divided into 4 groups. 

12/4‐15 Each group ranks candidates and telephone interviews top 10 applicants via 

teleconference as a group using standardized questionnaire; committee solicits 

comments from the entire PSD faculty (i.e., specific faculty member interested in 

a specific applicant); inform all PSD faculty of time table and poster presentation 

on 2/2/07 and gather information on faculty members who are planning to take 

students. 

12/15 2‐hour full committee meeting to discuss and pick candidates for visit and 

establish respective student contact, other: declined or hold‐off. 

1/1‐12 Establish web‐based evaluation and database for interviewees; arrange travel, 

accommodations, and local transportation; set daily schedule for all 

interviewees; confirm SOP faculty poster presentations and prepare abstract 

book 

~2/1 (Th) Use hotel shuttle from airport, evening social engagement at the hotel 

~2/2 (Fri) Breakfast on own (free at hotel), student escort to SOP in vans 

9:00‐10:00 am Welcome and information by Kao, Peterson, Roberts, Lauhon 

10:00a‐12:00n Faculty interview 

noon‐1:30p Lunch with students and faculty 

1:30‐4:00p Faculty interview 

4:00‐6:00p Reception and posters 

6:00p Students escort back to hotel, rest, escort to restaurant 

7:00p Dinner out 

~2/3 (Sat) Social with students: morning tour of Madison and attend local events 

~2/4 (Sun) Use hotel shuttle to airport 

2/2‐4 Reminder to SOP faculty for web‐based evaluations 

2/5‐9 Compile evaluations; confer with student liaisons 

2/9 1/2‐day full committee meeting on acceptance, supports, etc. 

2/12‐16 Send out acceptance letters and support applications 

Admissions Criteria 

Applicants for admission are reviewed on the following (unprioritized) criteria: 

• Major and coursework taken 

• GPA, GRE scores 

• TOEFL score for international students 

• Laboratory research experience 

• Reference letters 


• Personal statement 

• Phone Interview 

• Visit / Interview (Domestic or US‐based International Students Only) 

Application/Entering Class Statistics 

A typical breakdown of applications for the last ten years, is 20‐25% domestic students, 75% 

international students and 1‐5% minority students. (See Table 4.) The proportion of 

international student applications has increased somewhat in the last ten years, while 

domestic applications have been somewhat cyclical, and minority student applications have 

declined in recent years. Our mean entering class size during this period is 8 students, of which 

3.5 (53%) are domestic, 2.4 (36%) are international and 0.7 (11%) are from an 

underrepresented minority group. 

Recruitment 

Recruiting Weekend 

Prior to moving to our new building in 2001, our recruiting time was coordinated with other 

programs in the biological sciences on campus. Beginning in 2002, we have organized a 

separate recruiting weekend, initially to showcase the new building, in which all prospective 

students are invited to visit and interview with the faculty and current students. Representative 

details of the events and meeting schedules are provided in Appendix 5 (p. A2‐20). As 

described above in the admissions timeline, the students fly in on Thursday. On Friday they 

start with introductions and a brief overview of the structure of the program followed by 

meetings with faculty, which is broken up by lunch with faculty and students. A poster session 

is scheduled for the late afternoon which allows prospective students to talk to current 

students and postdocs about their research (Appendix 4, p. A2‐16). Friday evening is a group 

outing for dinner with faculty and students. Saturday is a tour of the campus and Madison with 

the students and includes a number of social events. The students are asked to complete a 

brief survey about their experience and they return home on Sunday. Feedback from the 

recruits indicates that the process is generally well received. 

Beginning in 2005, a policy was initiated to postpone acceptance decisions of prospective 

students until after the visits. Thus, the students realize they also are being evaluated as they 

are evaluating our program (Appendix 6, p. A2‐22). We have not found this change to be 

detrimental in regards to student survey responses and our offer acceptance rates have not 

declined since this change. Due to budget constraints we are unable to bring in international 

students and for these students we must make acceptance decisions on the basis of their 

application material and phone interviews alone. 


Table 2‐4: Applicant Demographics 

Ph.D. 

Applicants 

Domestic 

(excluding minority) 

Domestic 

under‐represented minority 

International 

Total 

For class 

entering 

Fall of: 

# 

accepted 

offers 

# 

applicants 

invited for 

visit* 

# offers 

made to 

visiting 

applicants 


accepted 

by visiting 

applicants 

# (%) total 

applicants 


made 

2000 10 (10%) 4 1 5 4 1 

2001 24 (18%) 9 4 9 9 1 

2002 20 (13%) 9 5 8 8 4 

2003 26 (15%) 10 3 8 8 4 

2004 29 (20%) 8 2 14 10 3 

2005 29 (27%) 12 3 21 13 2 

2006 25 (22%) 11 6 15 11 6 

2007 24 (22%) 9 5 12 9 5 

2008 20 (19%) 8 2 9 7 2 

2009 41 (26%) 13 5 21 13 5 

2000 2 (2.0%) 2 1 2 2 1 

2001 6 (4.6%) 3 2 4 3 2 

2002 10 (6.7%) 4 2 4 2 0 

2003 11 (6.2%) 2 1 3 2 1 

2004 2 (1.4%) 1 1 2 1 1 

2005 3 (2.8%) 1 1 1 1 0 

2006 3 (2.6%) 1 1 1 0 1 

2007 1 (.9%) 0 0 0 0 0 

2008 2 (1.8%) 0 0 0 0 0 

2009 2 (1.3%) 1 0 1 1 0 

2000 88 (88%) 7 3 10 7 3 

2001 100 (77%) 8 3 7 6 4 

2002 120 (80%) 8 4 9 6 4 

2003 140 (79%) 1 1 6 1 1 

2004 113 (78%) 8 5 15 8 5 

2005 76 (70%) 5 2 6 4 2 

2006 89 (78%) 4 2 7 4 2 

2007 84 (77%) 8 6 4 4 2 

2008 87 (80%) 5 5 3 2 2 

2009 114 (73%) 10 9 6 3 3 

2000 100 13 5 17 13 5 

2001 130 20 9 20 18 7 

2002 150 21 11 21 16 8 

2003 177 13 5 23 13 5 

2004 144 17 8 28 17 8 

2005 108 18 6 28 17 4 

2006 114 23 9 23 16 9 

2007 105 17 11 16 13 7 

2008 107 13 7 12 8 2 

2009 155 23 14 28 16 8 

* Last 3 columns include applicants who participated in a recruitment visit. 


Recruitment Budget/Funds 

We currently have a recruitment budget of ca. $15,000 for our recruiting weekend and 

publication materials. This does not include costs for supporting first year students during 

rotations and spring semester support. The majority of the funds are awarded to us each year 

by the Graduate School based on a competition with other programs in the Biological Sciences 

Division. In 2009, we brought in 23 students. The major expenses for the weekend event are air 

travel (~$5000), lodging ($1300) and food/drink ($2300). 

Support Mechanisms for 1 st Year Students as a Recruiting Tool 

Competition for quality students is very high. One significant challenge for our program and for 

the university as a whole, is presenting a competitive offer to prospective graduate students. 

The problem is particularly acute at Wisconsin, due to the recent institution of a tuition 

remission requirement of $4000 per semester for students receiving RA support. Students who 

receive fellowship or TA support have the tuition fee waived. However, there is a dearth of 

fellowship funds available for this purpose. We can currently only support the equivalent of 4‐5 

full fellowships per year. These fellowships are available from endowment funds from private 

donors and, although we have increased fundraising efforts recently, it is unreasonable to 

Table 2‐5. Overall Recruiting Budget, 2008‐09 and (estimated) 2009‐10 

7/1/08 – 6/30/09 

Expenditures 

7/1/09 – 6/30/10 

Expenditures (Est.) 

Recruiting visits a $11,402 $12,000 

Rotation stipends b $56,224 

$112,000 

(7 students) 

(ca. $8K/student) 

Stipend supplementation c $13,440 

$28,000 

(7 students) 

(ca. $2K/student) 

Marketing d $913 $1,000 

Minority recruitment e $1,319 $2,000 

Trips to Graduate Recruiting Fairs $1,037 $1,000 

Total Expenditures $84,335 $155,000 

Fellowship Flexible Fund 

Allocation 

$11,200.00 TBD 

Defray costs of travel, housing and meals for top prospective students to visit the campus and meet with 

faculty and graduate students. 

Support stipends of students for lab rotations during their first semester. We have a policy to support 

incoming graduate students their entire first calendar year with a stipend of $21,500 using a mixture of 

Fellowship/RA in the fall and TA in the spring and RA in the summer. These values are for a fall RA. 

This represents funds above the campus pay rate to supplement our students to the $21,500 level using 

the stated funding mechanisms in (b) above. 

Includes website redesign and upgrade. 

Defray the costs of recruiting minority graduate students, inc. sending recruiting brochures to 

predominantly minority undergraduate institutions, special visits to such schools, attending minority 

research symposium, etc. This amount will increase in the coming year. 

a 

b 

c 

d 

e 


expect a significant increase in these funds in the near future. Faculty of our division passed a 

resolution in spring 2009 that will guarantee stipend levels of $22,000 to all graduate students, 

including first year students. We are aware that many programs at our university and other 

universities offer higher stipend levels but in the current financial climate this level was agreed 

to by our faculty. A list of stipend levels and cost of living comparisons can be found in 

Appendix 9 (p. A2‐27). 

Currently, we offer a mixture of fellowship and teaching assistantships (TAs) to support first 

year students through their first two semesters. In the past, the School has provided full year 

support including the summer via research assistantships (RAs). However, that has become 

financially untenable and the faculty agreed in the Spring 2007 that individual PIs will support 

first year students who join their groups beginning in the summer of their first year. The 

fellowships for first year support are available from private donations. (Further information is 

provided in Appendix 7, p. A2‐24.) Some of these involved matching funds from the UW 

Foundation via the Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship Program (Appendix 8, p. A2‐ 

25). This matching program has ended, such that the principal required to support a full year 

fellowship from interest earnings are ca. $500,000. We can currently offer a small number of 

full‐year fellowships (1 in 2007 and none in 2008, 2009), while the remainder of the students 

are offered a mix of one semester fellowship and one semester TA support. In 2009, we have 

such as large incoming class that some students will teach during both semesters of their first 

year. In addition, since University TA stipends are below the rate necessary to reach our 

$22,000 stipend level, TAs need to be supplemented with unrestricted donated funds. These 

factors currently limit the number of graduate students we can accept unless further changes 

are implemented in our support strategy. In addition, we fear that in years when we have a 

large number of outstanding students, we will lose some of these students because unlike our 

peer institutions, we are unable to offer full year fellowships in most cases. 

In addition to fellowships offered from the division, a small number of our first year students 

are awarded training grants, which are a significant incentive for students to come to our 

program. These fellowships offer multiple years of support and combined with a first year 

fellowship from our division guarantee an average of four years of funding. In the recent years, 

we have had students awarded fellowships from the Chemistry Biology Interface (CBI) Training 

Grant and the Biotechnology Program Training Grant (BTP). (Award data is found in Section C. 

Current Students.) In 2009, one of our recruits was awarded a Molecular Biosciences Training 

Grant but decided to go to Johns Hopkins rather than enter our program. However, it is 

encouraging that we are able to attract this caliber of student to our program. 

Our response to these funding challenges is to make graduate student support a top fundraising 

priority. In the last few years, we have had a number of faculty retirements and in many cases 

the faculty have been generous enough to initiate graduate student fellowship funds in their 

name. In addition, the School’s 125 th anniversary celebration (Fall, 2008) was earmarked as an 

opportunity to bring both graduate and professional student alumni back to the School and will 

be capitalized upon as a fundraising opportunity. 


In the past, we have done a poor job at keeping in touch with our graduate student alumni. We 

currently do not solicit our alumni for donations. This year, we have initiated a graduate alumni 

survey that will serve as an initial contact. We have also been lobbying the University for 

increased attention to this issue, although it is clear that the Graduate School is well‐aware of 

these issues and has begun a number of initiatives to increase University‐wide graduate student 

fellowship support. For example, the Biological Sciences Division has initiated a small amount 

of funds to be given as recruitment awards to entice our best applicants to enter our program. 

The Dean of the School of Pharmacy is also committed to seeking funds from alumni and 

industry partners for new fellowships, in the hope of offsetting the challenges of recruiting 

pressures and the increasing cost of funding students. 

Other Recruiting Strategies 

The Division currently is looking for ways to improve the quality of incoming graduate students. 

Exit surveys of visiting prospective students indicated we are competing with top institutions 

for our students. Admissions data indicate that we are getting a good percentage of 

acceptances from the students that we admit, but many faculty feel that our application pool 

could be stronger or a better match in terms of the students’ backgrounds. In the Drug 

Discovery Core in particular, many faculty feel that we are not reaching out to Chemistry 

departments efficiently. The School of Pharmacy recently hired a Director of Communications, 

Diane Stojanovich, who is charged with increasing our ability to use media more effectively to 

connect with targeted groups, including potential students. Working with her, the Division has 

developed new materials (available at the site visit) that more specifically target students we 

want to apply to our program. This includes organic chemistry students for our Drug Discovery 

Core and physical and biological chemists for our Drug Delivery Core. Because of the diverse 

research interests in our program, such targeting remains a challenge and will depend on 

significant faculty input to ensure success. The Chair initiated a Program Recruiting Committee, 

which updated web resources. 

Such efforts in media and web improvements may be paying off. Last year we had a very strong 

applicant pool including a large number of impressive domestic applicants. While we could 

have been more successful landing our top candidates, we are hopeful that our efforts will 

continue to pay off in a strong applicant pool and we can find ways to convince these students 

that our program is the right match for their graduate careers. 

Recent successes aside, it seems that the faculty, while involved during the actual recruitment 

weekend, could be doing more during the remainder of the year to increase the program’s 

visibility to potential students. Such activities include participation in recruiting events at 

graduate student organizations, giving seminars at schools that educate outstanding potential 

PhD students, and communication with students on campus from other programs to encourage 

their interest in our program. Our near term goal is to organize our resources more effectively 

in order to make it easier for faculty to reach potential students either via the web or through 

conferences and seminar visits. 


Recruiting of Underrepresented Minority (URM) Students 

The University of Wisconsin, the School of Pharmacy, and the Pharmaceutical Sciences Division 

are all committed to the task of recruiting more URM students to the campus. The School’s 

former Director of Diversity, Amber Ault, assisted the division in increasing its active in minority 

recruitment. Moving forward, the Division will increase these initiatives under the guidance of 

the Assistant Dean for Graduate Studies and administrative staff. In our more recent 

competitions for recruiting funds from the Biological Division of the Graduate School, we 

ranked 8 th out of 22 programs on campus for our efforts at recruiting minority students. We 

were ranked 5 th last year and 6 th ‐8 th in the last five years. Thus, while we could be doing more, 

our results to date are not from lack of effort. 

Below is a list of specific efforts that faculty have shown toward recruiting URM students. 

• Faculty have attended targeted events, such as the McNair Scholar graduate fair held 

annually in Delevan, WI. 

• Faculty in the division participate as trainers in the campus wide Integrated Biological 

Sciences Summer Research Program (IBS‐SRP) which is largely made up of URM students 

as well as low income and students who are first in their family to attend college. 

• Faculty have visited Xavier University in Louisiana, a Historically Black University at their 

annual graduate fair. Prof. William Mellon in our program has made contacts that have 

enable students from Xavier do summer research in our Division. 

• On campus, the Assistant Dean for Graduate Studies has met with URM summer 

research program students to increase visibility of the program with this group of highly 

talented students. 

Prompted by concerns over consistently low numbers of minority student applications to our 

program, we are in the early stages of initiating new efforts in URM recruiting. Past efforts 

have been initiated by the Assistant Dean and/or individual faculty members without an overall 

coordinated plan. By tapping expertise of the School’s new Director of Diversity (Rebecca 

Beebe), a new Program Recruiting Committee, and providing sufficient administrative support 

(Ken Niemeyer, Assistant to the Chair), we hope to organize efforts in a more focused way. 

Below is a list of new approaches, some of which would require significant investment of funds 

that have not been committed to date: 

• Initiation of a summer undergraduate research program specific to the Pharmaceutical 

Sciences that targets minority students. 

• Partnering with a university or college that has a strong record in producing BS and/or 

MS degrees earned by minority students for the purposes of summer research and as a 

feeder program. 

• Enticing or rewarding faculty for giving seminars at schools that are major educators of 

minority students entering PhD programs. 

• Partnering with Dr. Theresa Duello in the ERP program who has initiated a concerted 

minority student recruitment effort for a number of biological sciences programs on 

campus. 


Summary 

In the past ten years, the Program has improved the effort, organization and effectiveness of 

our recruiting efforts. Our current challenges are likely the same as those faced by our peers, 

namely gathering the resources necessary to offer competitive recruiting packages to 

prospective students and attracting underrepresented minority students to a School that does 

not currently have a critical mass of such students. One unique challenge to our program is 

attracting more domestic organic chemistry students to work with our drug discovery faculty 

and the constant challenge of alerting students in both biological and chemistry departments to 

the opportunities for graduate study in pharmaceutical sciences as opposed to other more 

traditional basic science programs. 


C. Current Students 

Synopsis 

Currently there are 50 graduate students in the Pharmaceutical Sciences program. Of these, 19 

are female, 31 are male, 28 are international students and 22 are domestic (Table 6). The 

incoming class for 2009 is 14 students and last year 13 students graduated with PhDs. Both 

numbers are historically near the high end for our program. Total enrollment has been 

somewhat cyclical and ranged from a low of 32 in 1999/2000 to a high of 51 in 2006. In the 

past ten years the proportion of domestic vs. international students has remained nearly 

constant at ca. 50% but has trended upward very recently. The proportion of female to male 

students was near unity until very recently. The number of underrepresented minority 

students was steadily increasing from a low of 1 in 1996 to a high of 6 students in 2005. 

However, in the past few years we have noticed a significant decline in not only enrollment but 

also in applications. This has resulted in an initiation of recruiting efforts in this regard 

(outlined in the section on Prospective Students). 

Table 2‐6. Total Enrollment by Year 

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 

TOTAL 32 32 41 49 44 41 42 51 48 46 50 

Female 16 19 20 25 22 18 18 19 21 20 19 

Minority 3 3 4 6 5 5 6 3 2 2 2 

U.S. 15 14 18 25 26 20 21 26 24 21 22 

Table 2‐7. Academic Qualifications of Incoming Students by Year, 1999‐2009 

Class 

Entering 

Fall of: 

# of 

INCOMING 

Students 

Average 

Verbal 

GRE 

(Percentile) 

Average 

Quantitative 

GRE 

(Percentile) 

Average 

Analytical 

GRE 

(Percentile) 

Average 

Undergraduate 

GPA 

1999 6 (56) (82) (66) 3.60 

2000 7 (55) (75) (64) 3.49 

2001 18 (64) (82) (79) 3.54 

2002 9 553 (71) 753 (87) 656 (73) 3.40 

2003 5 578 (77) 680 (68) 715 (81) 3.32 

2004 8 571 (77) 734 (79) 712 3.38 

2005 6 550 (66) 693 (70) 4.0* 3.58 

2006 9 544 (61) 730 (74) 4.7 3.65 

2007 11 544 (61) 728 (73) 4.8 3.68 

2008 7 (54) (89) 4.1 3.52 

2009 14 (64) (84) 4.0 3.52 

*New format for Analytical GRE began in 2005. 


54 

Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Enrollment 

51 

48 

45 

42 

39 

36 

33 

30 

27 

24 

21 

18 

TOTAL 

Female 

Minority 

U.S. 

15 

12 

9 

6 

3 

0 

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 

Academic Year 

Figure 2‐1. Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Enrollment, 1996‐2007 

Mechanisms of Student Support 

Teaching Assistants 

Most graduate students in the program will hold Teaching Assistantships at least once during 

their tenure and most do so multiple times. The number of semesters a student spends as a TA 

is largely a function of research funding of the thesis advisor. The courses which employ our 

students as TAs are almost exclusively in the professional PharmD curriculum. The role of TAs 

in these courses is strictly as support for faculty who are the primary lecturers in each course. 

Typical duties include attending lecture, holding office hours, supervising teaching laboratories, 

grading and (in some cases) running discussion sections. There has been considerable 

discussion and thought given to enhancing the teaching experience for our students. This 

aspect of graduate student training is discussed in Section D, Curriculum. 

TA Assignment Policy 

Faculty are polled in advance on how their students will be supported in the upcoming year. 

Based on these data, TA requests are matched with need based on courses offered for the 

semester. Typically, requests for TA are not denied, but occasionally there is an excess in 

supply or demand for TA positions that must be negotiated. TA assignment is currently handled 

by the Asst. Dean for Graduate Studies in conjunction with the Graduate Program Coordinator, 

who manages the requests. In assigning TAs, an attempt is made to match the student’s 


ackground with an appropriate course and to communicate with faculty course coordinators 

the demands for each TA position so that a proper match can be made. For laboratory courses, 

an attempt is made to have a mixture of experienced and new TAs in order to maintain a level 

of expertise in the teaching of these courses from year to year. 

Once assignments are made, letters are sent to the prospective students who have to sign 

agreements as to the terms and description of tasks and expectations. The Division takes this 

very seriously and certain responsibilities, such as attendance at lectures and professionalism, 

are stressed in each appointment letter. Once the student agrees to the terms of the 

appointment, he or she is instructed to contact the course coordinator for further specific 

instructions. Once instruction begins, TAs must sign biweekly time sheets indicating amount of 

effort, which is tabulated to help balance TA workload and inform future assignments. 

Assignments for Fall and Spring of the 2007‐08 academic year, along with the TA workload of 

these courses are provided in Appendices 10 (p. A2‐28) and 11 (p. A2‐30). 

Teaching Assistant Resources 

As shown in the table 2‐8 below, TA full time equivalents (FTEs) have increased somewhat for 

Pharmaceutical Sciences courses in the last ten years. This is largely due to lecture‐only courses 

receiving TA support whereas in the past this was not as common. In some cases these courses 

report lower workloads, but the faculty have found the support very useful in terms of grading 

and running discussion sections. The latter activity is in line with an attempt to increase 

teaching opportunities for graduate students in the program, as described in the section on 

curriculum. The use of TAs to support first year students has become more of a necessity as 

fellowship dollars are being stretched. Our efforts to increase the number of students we can 

accept into our program is largely limited by our ability to support those students, and TA 

support has become a crucial mechanism in that regard, to the point where difficult decisions 

about awarding TAs will need to be made in times of competitive funding. Allocation of TAs for 

first year student support impacts recruiting, as many of the top students are looking for full 

year fellowship offers, while large incoming classes that are supported largely by TA 

appointments take away from support for experienced TAs which are crucial for teaching and 

training the first year students. Thus, a balance is sought between recruiting, student support, 

and teaching support. 


Table 2‐8. School of Pharmacy Teaching Assistant FTEs 1996‐2009 

Fellowships 

Outside Fellowships/Training Grant Awards 

The University of Wisconsin is fortunate to have a number of federal training grants available 

for supporting excellent graduate students. The two training grants that apply mostly to our 

students are the Chemistry‐Biology Interface Training Grant (CBI) and the Biotechnology 

Training Program (BTP) Grant. The CBI grant was initiated at Wisconsin by Prof. Dan Rich in our 

program in 1996 and is currently the largest such grant nationally. Prof. Jon Thorson is 

currently deputy director. Both types of awards are extremely competitive due to the large 

number of excellent departments on campus and our students have been increasingly 

successful in obtaining them, which is one indicator of the quality of our students. Students in 

our program have also been successful in competing for predoctoral scholarships from the 

American Foundation for Pharmacy Education (AFPE), which are smaller awards ($6000 annual 

for up to two years) but nonetheless equally competitive. Only 60 are given out nationally each 

year. A list of outside fellowships awarded to graduate students in our program is given below. 


Table 2‐9. Outside Fellowships Awarded to Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Students, 

1997‐2008 

Year Student Advisor Award 

1997‐8 Amy Ripka Rich ACS MedChem 

1997‐8 Wendy L. Kelly Lauhon CBI 

1998‐8 Moises Rivera‐Bermudez Mellon AFPE 

1998‐9 Bing Li Robinson AFPE 

1998‐9 Heidi Mansour Zografi AFPE 

2000‐1 Stacy Keding Rich AFPE 

2001‐3 Scott Croy Kwon AFPE 

2002‐6 May Xiong Kwon Gates Millenium 

2003‐4 Lindsay Comstock Rajski AFPE 

2003‐5 Eric Wagner Heath AFPE 

2002‐5 Jose Restituyo Rajski CBI 

2004‐7 Jared Mays Rajski CBI 

2005‐7 Joe Su Burnette AFPE 

2005‐7 Matt Slattery Heideman AFPE 

2005‐7 Joshua Schmidt Li AFPE 

2005‐7 Amy Gustafson Kao NSF 

2006‐8 James Dowell Li AFPE 

2006‐9 Tracy Williamson Ferguson BTP 

2007‐8 May Xiong Kwon PhARMA Fellow 

2008‐11 Claire Schmerberg Li BTP 

2009‐11 Grant Buchanan Hsung AFPE 

2009‐11 Richard Gantt Thorson AFPE 

Distribution of TA, RA and Fellowship Support 

In the fall of 2007, of the 49 students in our program, 20 received TA support, 21 received RA 

support, 2 were supported by training grants (CBI, BTP), and 5 received full fellowships. Partial 

fellowships are not included in this breakdown. These numbers are typical for our program – 

the typical RA/TA ratio is near one to one (Appendix 12, p. A2‐31). Most of the TAs are first or 

second year students; however, there are a number of cases in which students with dissertator 

status receive TA support in cases in which faculty do not have funds to provide RA support. 

The School has rarely refused TA support requests from faculty. 

The supply and demand of TA support has been recently analyzed and a consistent trend has 

been found. First year students have traditionally been supported by a mixture of TA and 

fellowship support, with TA appointments offered in spring only. This has created an 

imbalance, with excess demand for TAs in the fall (often requiring import of TAs from other 

departments) and excess supply (due to first year students) in the spring. Thus, beginning in 


2007‐8, half of the first year students were given TA appointments in the fall to even out the 

supply/demand imbalance (Appendix 13, p. A2‐33). Preliminary responses to this policy have 

been favorable in that the first year TAs performed well and the supply and demand issue has 

been largely resolved. However, in the fall of 2009, for the first time, we are forced to have 

some first year students TA both semesters of their first year due to inadequate funds for 

fellowship support due to the large class size. 

Other Funds/Awards Supporting Graduate Education 

In addition to Fellowships, the Division has a number of awards designated to support and 

reward the teaching and research of our graduate students: 

1) Six travel awards for the support of graduate students attending conferences in which they 

present their work. The Donald T. Witiak Award is given to senior students in Drug 

Discovery for this purpose, while the Leon Lachman Award is given to senior students in the 

Drug Delivery area. In addition, the Dean has recently initiated a Drug Action Travel Award 

for students in this core. Each award is for $1000, two for each core group. 

2) The Rennebohm Dissertation Award ($1000) is presented annually to the graduate student 

whose PhD dissertation was voted the best by the Graduate Studies Committee. 

3) Four Rennebohm TA awards ($500 each) are given to School of Pharmacy TAs based 

primarily on student evaluation of their performance (full criteria in Appendix 14, p. A2‐36). 

Typically two per year are given to Pharmaceutical Sciences TAs. The Graduate Studies 

committee is working on a policy that would make at least one of the awards applicationbased 

on TA teaching performance that would require supporting letters from course 

coordinators showing evidence of teaching excellence. 

Career Placement Data and Support for Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Students 

A significant metric for assessing the quality of a graduate program is where the students go 

after they earn their degree. Placement data from 2001‐2007 is found in Appendix 15 (p. A2‐ 

37). The data shows that our students have been successful in obtaining quality positions in 

both academia (as postdoctoral researchers) as well as industry. One of our recent faculty 

hires, May Xiong, is a graduate of our program. To educate students about future career paths, 

we have in recent years conducted a Graduate Student Research Retreat in which graduate 

students present their research to their peers. In addition to the research talks are career 

guidance talks by alumni of our graduate program. Last year’s retreat included talks by former 

students who are now in diverse types of both academic and industry positions. The retreat is 

attended by the Division Chair and Vice Chair in charge of the Graduate Program. 


D. Curriculum 

Degrees Offered – MS Degree 

The Pharmaceutical Sciences Program offers both an MS and PhD degree. However, the PhD is 

the focus of the program. MS degrees are typically awarded to students who are exiting the 

PhD program and have completed university requirements for coursework and a modest 

amount of research. Some Pharmaceutical Sciences faculty who mentor PhD students in other 

programs have their students get an MS in Pharmaceutical Sciences to illustrate the breadth of 

training for that student. The Division does not actively recruit students for a terminal MS 

degree. In the past, there was considerable flexibility in the research component of the MS 

degree (thesis or short report; optional oral defense). In 2008, the faculty passed a resolution 

requiring a research M.S. thesis that is the subject of an oral defense before a committee of at 

least three members of the Pharmaceutical Sciences faculty. 

Curriculum Philosophy 

The PhD program consists of a broadly based curriculum covering all aspects of pharmaceutical 

research that represents the three basic cores of the division – Drug Discovery, Drug Action and 

Drug Delivery. These focus areas include a number of disciplines: synthetic organic chemistry, 

medicinal chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacology, cell biology, toxicology, genetics, polymer 

chemistry, physical pharmacy, pharmaceutics, and biomaterials. Thus, our students can acquire 

a broadly based foundation in pharmaceutical sciences in addition to more focused coursework 

that relates to their chosen field of research. A survey course, Pharmaceutical Sciences 780, is 

required for all students in the program and attempts to cover the fundamentals of the field 

(Appendix 17, p. A2‐48). In addition, each core has recently identified one course that 

exemplifies its basic principles. We feel that the common core training is crucial to enhance 

communication and collaboration within our division and the field overall. 

The University of Wisconsin typically facilitates the broadening of doctoral education via the 

introduction of a PhD minor course program. The PhD minor consists of 10 credits in addition 

to the major coursework that must be taken outside the student’s home department. However, 

due to the inherent breadth of the Pharmaceutical Sciences Division student population and 

faculty research interests, as well as our required courses, we have recently enacted the 

converse curriculum construct. In other words, our core course program is broadly based, with 

the expectation that students will then complete their curriculum with more narrowly defined 

courses with the assistance of their PhD advisor (See “Area of Expertise” p. 2‐23). Thus, the 

Graduate School Executive Committee in 2008 granted our request to eliminate the PhD minor 

requirement from our program. 

Pharmaceutical Sciences Minimum PhD Degree Requirements 

• A minimum of 32 credits of graduate level courses taken at UW‐Madison 

• These derive from a combination of PSD Course Requirements and 990 research credits 

• Courses must be at least 300 level and above 

• A grade point average of 3.0 or above 

• Grades of "BC" or above; "C" or lower are considered unsatisfactory, but may be offset 


y grades of "AB" and "A", respectively, in regular courses or seminars 

• The offsetting grades must be matched in hours of credit and the grades must be 

obtained before dissertation status is achieved 

• Courses with grades of "P" (Progress) count toward the credit requirement only if they 

are research courses 

• Courses taken pass/fail, audited, or with grades of "D" or "F" will not be counted toward 

graduate school credits or the PSD Course Requirements 

Pharmaceutical Sciences PhD Course Requirements 

Beginning with the 2007‐8 entering class, the Division adopted a new graduate curriculum; this 

is described in detail in Table 11. This curriculum was approved by Division faculty in May 2007. 

The online student handbook is the current document of record 

(http://www.pharmacy.wisc.edu/edu/pharmsci/handbook/index.cfm). 

Table 2‐10. Previous Curriculum (For entering students in the years 1997‐2006) 

Major Requirements 

1) Principles of Pharmaceutical Sciences 718‐780 (minimum grade of B) 

2) Conference of Research Workers (every semester), 718‐931 or 718‐932 

3) Research (718‐990) 

4) Chemistry 561 or Chemistry 665 or Biochemistry 601 

5) Zoology 570 or an equivalent course in cell biology (i.e., Pathology 750 for 3 credits or 

AHABS 875 for 3‐4 credits). 

6) At least 6 additional credits in Pharmaceutical Sciences graduate courses (or related 

discipline). 

Minor Program (no longer required by Pharmaceutical Sciences Program) 

Each Ph.D. candidate must satisfy the Graduate School requirement for a minor program. 

1) Option A (external): requires at least 10 graduate credits in a single department/major 

field; the minor field being supplementary to Pharmaceutical Sciences. The student should 

select a minor professor as early as possible, since the exact design of the minor program is 

the prerogative of the minor department. One course cross listed with the major may be 

used to satisfy Minor Option A, if it is not applicable to any requirements of the major. 

2) Option B (distributed): permits a student, with the formal approval of the School of 

Pharmacy Graduate Studies Committee, to take a minor of at least 10 credits in two or 

more departments relevant to the major, when Option A cannot meet the student's 

interests. The Pharmaceutical Sciences faculty must also approve this minor program 

before it is submitted to the School of Pharmacy’s Associate Dean for Graduate Studies for 

final approval. One course cross listed with the major may be used to satisfy Minor Option 

B so long as it is staffed by one of the outside programs and is not applicable to any 

requirements of the major. 


Table 2‐11. New PhD Course Requirements (For students entering as of Fall, 2007) 

Required Coursework 

• Core Course I ‐ Principles of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Phm Sci 718‐780, 3 credits) 

• Core Courses II and III (Students must choose two of the following three options): 

o Action Core Course ‐ Cellular Signal Transduction Mechanisms (Biochem 200‐ 

630, 3 credits) (course is cross listed with Zoology and Phmcol‐M) 

o Delivery Core Course ‐ Pharmacokinetics (Phm Sci 718‐768, 3 credits), 

o Discovery Core Course ‐ Natural Product Synthesis, Biosynthesis, and Drug 

Discovery (Phm Sci 718‐786, 3 credits) 

• Ethics Course ‐ Seminar on Scientific Ethics (Chem 224‐901 or similar, 1 credit) 

• Seminar ‐ Pharmaceutical Sciences Seminar (Phm Sci 718‐931/932, 1 credit each 

semester while in Ph.D. program) 

• Three (3) additional course credits from the PSD graduate course list 

Additional Notes 

• A grade of "B" or better must be achieved in each course for it to count towards the 

PSD Core Curriculum Requirements 

• School of Pharmacy policy requires that no student accumulate more than 7 credits 

with grade BC or lower in all graduate level coursework. 

• "Full‐time" semester course load is considered 8 (min) to 12 (max) credits for nondissertators; 

3 credits for dissertators 

• A combination of course credits and 990 research credits are used to sustain "full‐time" 

status for both non‐dissertators (majority will be course credits) and dissertators 

(majority should be 990 research credits and needs to includes the annual seminar 

requirement) 

Area of Expertise 

Each student is also expected to attain a depth of knowledge in their core area of expertise 

(drug action; drug delivery; or drug discovery). Each student is expected to work with their 

advisor and/or Thesis Committee to identify the courses that will provide the desired depth of 

knowledge in their area of expertise. This may involve taking 2‐3 upper level (500 level or 

above) graduate courses in addition to courses that satisfy the PSD Core Curriculum Course 

Requirements 

Current Courses 

Table 12 lists graduate‐level courses in which Pharmaceutical science graduate student may 

enroll. It includes core and elective courses currently taught by faculty within the 

Pharmaceutical Sciences Division. In addition, many Pharmaceutical Sciences graduate 

students take courses in other departments on campus according to their specific areas of 

expertise. Outside departments include Chemistry, Bacteriology, Biochemistry, Genetics, 

Bioengineering, and Molecular and Environmental Toxicology. One challenge that we have 

identified in this regard is how to increase the number of core and elective graduate level 

courses offered by faculty in our own program. This is discussed in more detail below. 


Table 2‐12. Courses in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Program 

Core Courses 

768 Pharmacokinetics. 3 cr. Quantitative aspects of drug absorption, distribution, metabolism, and 

excretion. Philosophy and applications of pharmacokinetic modeling and its use in clinical 

practice. P: Cons inst. Instructor: Prof. Ron Burnette 

780 Introduction to Pharmaceutical Sciences. 3 cr. Overview of the three cores of the Pharmaceutical 

Sciences Division‐‐lectures in drug discovery, drug action, and drug delivery. P: Cons inst. 

Instructor: multiple. Prof. Glen Kwon, coordinator 

786 Natural Product Synthesis, Biosynthesis, and Drug Discovery. 3 cr. Synthesis and biosynthesis of 

natural products in drug discovery. Topics: natural products in drug discovery; biosynthetic 

pathways and synthetic strategies for the major natural product classes; and basic bioorganic 

chemistry and enzyme mechanisms in biosynthesis. P: Chem 345 or equivalent; Biochem 508 or 

equivalent. Instructors: Prof. Ben Shen, Jon Thorson, Richard Hsung 

931/932 Pharmaceutical Sciences Seminar. 1 cr. Weekly seminar features nationally prominent scholar 

in the area of drug discovery, drug action, or drug delivery. P: Grad st. 

Elective Courses (taught by Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty and may be taken for credit by 

Pharmaceutical Sciences graduate students) 

430 Biological Interactions with Materials. (Cross listed with BME) 3 cr. This course addresses the 

range of materials currently being utilized for various biomedical applications, the biological 

systems governing biomaterial applications, analytical techniques pertinent to biomaterial 

evaluation, and selected major medical applications in which biomaterials play an important role. 

P: 1 yr of general biol or two semesters of zool, & 1 semester of organic chem, or cons inst. 

Instructor: Prof. John Kao 

493 Mass Spectrometry in Health Sciences: Fundamentals & Applications (Meets with Chem 622). 2 

cr. P: Grad stdt; senior undergraduates may enroll with cons inst. Instructor: Prof. Lingjun Li 

677 Natural Product Chemistry & Engineered Biosynthesis. 3‐4 cr. For undergraduate seniors and 

graduate students interested in the biosynthesis of natural products and genetic engineering of 

second metabolism for drug discovery and development. Covers these natural products classes: 

fatty acids, polyketides, carbohydrates, terpenoids, metabolites of shikimate origin, peptides and 

B‐lactams, and alkaloids. P: Biochem 507‐508, or Chem 547 or 641, or cons inst. Instructor: Prof. 

Ben Shen; Prof. Jon Thorson 

766 Molecular Recognition. (Cross listed with Chem) 2‐3 cr. Origin, nature, classification, and 

description of intermolecular forces. The hydrophobic effect. Molecular complexes, binding 

constants, and their measurements. General principles of self‐assembly, molecular recognition, 

complex formation, host design. Supramolecular systems and their dynamics. Micelles, bilayers, 

vesicles, biological membranes. P: Chem 561 or equiv physical chemistry or cons inst. Instructor: 

Prof. Sandro Mecozzi 

770 Special Topics in Pharmaceutical Sciences. 2 cr. Current status of the theoretical aspects of 

pharmaceutical biochemistry and their practical application. P: Cons inst. Topics: Polymeric Drug 

Delivery; Targeted Drug Delivery. Instructor: Prof. Glen Kwon 

773 Solids and Powder Technology. 2 cr. Theory basic to the technology of solid dosage forms used in 

pharmacy and medicine. P: Cons inst. Instructor: Prof. Lian Yu 

774 Interfacial and Colloidal Phenomena. 3 cr. Introduction to selected topics in interfacial and 

colloidal science. Topics include: surface thermodynamics; monolayers; adsorption; wetting; 

micellization; particle interactions; steric and electrical stabilization; sedimentation. P: Chem 561. 


Table 2‐12. Courses in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Program (cont.) 

PharmD/PharmTox B.S. Courses that Can Serve as Graduate‐Level Electives (all are required for the 

PharmD or PharmTox BS degrees and taught by Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty) 

521 Pharmacology I. 3 cr. Pharmacological actions of important drugs, including drugs that affect the 

peripheral nervous system, the central nervous system, and the gastrointestinal tract. P: Bact 303, 

Physiol 335, Phm Sci 432, Path 404 or cons inst. 

522 Pharmacology II. 2 cr. Pharmacological actions of important drugs, including hematopoietic, 

thrombolytic, antihyperlipidemic, immunopharma‐cologic, anticancer, anti‐inflammatory, diuretic, 

antihypertensive, antianginal, and anti‐arrhythmic agents, and agents used to treat congestive 

heart failure. P: Phm Sci 521. 

531 Medicinal Chemistry I. 2 cr. Chemistry of medicinal products, including cholinergic, adrenergic, 

dopaminergic and serotonergic agents, antidepressants, sedative/hypnotics, antianxiety drugs, 

opioid drugs acting at histamine receptors, and inhibitors of mediator release. P: Phm Sci 432 or 

cons inst. 

532 Medicinal Chemistry II. 2 cr. Chemistry of medicinal products, including antihyperlipidemics, 

glucocorticoids, estrogens, progestins, nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatories, antitumor agents, and 

enzyme inhibitors. P: Phm Sci 531. 

540 Drug Delivery Systems. 4 cr. The application of physical, chemical and biological principles to the 

study of drug delivery using a variety of solid, solution and disperse systems as dosage forms. 

Rationale for therapeutic use, formulation and manufacture, and evaluation of stability and 

bioavailability. P: Phm Sci 420, 421; con reg in Phm Sci 541. 

623 Pharmacology III. 2 cr. Pharmacological actions of important drugs, including antimicrobial and 

antiviral drugs, hormones and other drugs affecting the endocrine system. P: Phm Sci 522. 

625 Toxicology I. (Crosslisted with Env Tox, Medicine, Oncology, Path, Phmcol‐M, Prev Med, Ahabs) 3 

cr. Basic principles of toxicology and biochemical mechanisms of toxicity in mammalian species and 

man. Correlation between morphological and functional changes caused by toxicants in different 

organs of the body. P: Biochem 501 & Physiol 335 or cons inst. Path 401 & Phmcol 401 or equiv 

recommended. 

626 Toxicology II. (Crosslisted with Env Tox, Medicine, Path, Phmcol‐M, Prev Med, Ahabs) 3 cr. A 

course surveying the basic methods and fundamental biochemical mechanisms of toxicity. Toxicity 

in mammalian organ systems, techniques for evaluating toxicity, as well as mechanisms of species 

specificity, and environmental interactions (with toxicant examples) are presented. P: Env Tox 625 

or cons inst. 

645 Pharmaceutical Biotechnology & Pharmacogenomics. 2‐3 cr. Facilitates the understanding and 

application of the principles of pharmaceutical biotechnology and pharmacogenomics. The third 

credit, open only to PharmD students, consists of clinical case studies in biotechnology and 

pharmacogenomics, to apply theory to clinical pharmacy practice. P: Phm Sci 432 & DPH‐3 st, or 

cons inst. 


Sample Student Curriculum 

Two sample curricula appear in provided in Table 13. The first is for students prior to the Fall 

2007, when our course requirements were revised. The second is a predicted sample 

curriculum for students entering during/after Fall 2007. 

Table 2‐13. Sample Curricula for Students 

Prior to 2007 

2007 and after 

Fall, Year 1 Fall, Year 1 

PHM SCI 780 Principles of Pharmaceutical Sciences PHM SCI 780 Principles of Pharmaceutical Sciences 

(3 credits) 

(3 credits) 

CHEM 561 or 665 or BIOCHEM 601 (3 credits) PHM SCI 931 Seminar in Pharmaceutical Sciences 

(1 credit) 

PHM SCI 931 Seminar in Pharmaceutical Sciences Core Course I (PHM SCI 768 or BIOCHEM 630, 3 

(1 credit) 

credits) 

Elective 

Core Course II or Elective (3 credits) 

(CHEM 641 – organic chemistry based students; 

BIOCHEM 612 – prokaryotic molecular biology; 

others) (3 credits) 

PHM SCI 990 Research (2 credits) 

PHM SCI 990 Research (2 credits) 

Spring, Year 1 Spring, Year 1 

PHM SCI 932 Seminar in Pharmaceutical Sciences Elective or Core Course II (PHM SCI 786, 3 credits) 

(1 credit) 

ZOOLOGY 550 (3 credits) 

Electives (2‐6 credits) 

Elective 

PHM SCI 932 Seminar in Pharmaceutical Sciences 

(BIOCHEM 625 – Coenzyme Mechanisms; (1 credit) 

CHEM 630 – Protein Characterization; 

PHM SCI 770 – Polymeric Drug Delivery; 

CHEM 664 – Physical Chem of Macromolecules; 

others) (2‐6 credits) 

PHM SCI 990 Research (0‐4 credits) 

CHEM 224 (Scientific Ethics, 1 credit) 


Fall, Year 2 Fall, Year 2 

PHM SCI 931 Seminar in Pharmaceutical Sciences PHM SCI 931 Seminar in Pharmaceutical Sciences 

(1 credit) 

(1 credit) 

Electives (PHM SCI 768 – Pharmacokinetics; Electives (2‐6 credits) 

BIOCHEM 624 – Mechanism of Enzyme Action; 

ONCOLOGY 703 – Tumor Cell Biology, others) 

(2‐6 credits) 



Spring, Year 2 Spring, Year 2 


(1 credit) 


(1 credit) 






Curriculum Assessment 

What instruments do we use to assess our graduate curriculum? Currently, all courses and 

their instructors in the School of Pharmacy are subjected to student evaluations. Some courses 

in the program also have teaching assistants (TAs), who are similarly assessed. In addition to 

student evaluations, TAs are evaluated by the instructors for their assigned courses. The 

Assistant Dean for Graduate Studies in conjunction with the Graduate Program Coordinator 

(Ms. Linda Frei) monitors TA compliance with initially communicated guidelines that are 

presented to TAs in the body of their offer letter, which they must sign to receive their TA 

appointment. The Graduate Studies Committee is charged with overseeing and acting upon 

any deficiencies in this area. The workload of each TA is assessed using timesheets filled in by 

each TA. We entertain suggestions about the curriculum from the students in the form of 

annual Town Hall meetings and course evaluations. Students are also encouraged to submit 

comments in written format to the Assistant Dean for Graduate Studies or to meet with the 

Assistant Dean to discuss concerns or provide ideas that could improve graduate education in 

our program. 

More could undoubtedly be done in this area. Instruments of assessment currently in use in 

the professional curriculum should and could easily be adapted to the graduate courses. Such 

instruments include student surveys, exit interviews, and comparative data analysis on 

enrollment and evaluation trends for each of the courses. We have recently completed and 

begun implementation of a graduate student alumni online survey to begin to get feedback 

about our curriculum, among other aspects of the program. (Current alumni survey can be 

found in Appendix 16, p. A2‐39) 

We currently have no regularly scheduled peer review of teaching at either the professional or 

graduate level, although there has been much discussion of this topic. Junior faculty are peer 

reviewed for teaching competence for the purposes of evaluation for promotion. More on this 

can be found in the section on Faculty. 

Curriculum Concerns 

One perceived deficiency in our curriculum is the relatively low number of graduate courses 

that are taught by faculty in our division, particularly in the Drug Action and Drug Discovery 

areas. In part, this may be a function of the difficulty in attracting enough students to make 

teaching the course worthwhile. The University places a high burden for approval of a course 

that may be duplicated elsewhere on campus and this often dampens enthusiasm when a 

faculty member finds that a potential course he/she would like to offer in our division is 

duplicated in another department. Some faculty cite the burden of teaching load in the 

professional program which inhibits teaching efforts at the graduate level. The Drug Delivery 

core has developed a number of graduate level courses that are unique in their applications to 

pharmaceutical science as well as an independent seminar series in which students present 

their research. One recent challenge has been to have faculty numbers strong enough to offer 

these courses on a consistent basis, but the Division has been very successful in hiring new 

faculty recently, such that this should not be a problem going forward. 


In spite of the concerns, a recent initiative developed by the Division Chair aims to increase the 

number of graduate courses offered within the Division. Solutions to the duplication problems 

stated above are to develop courses that offer a unique perspective of the basic science that 

involves relevance to pharmaceutical applications. In an ideal scenario, this would evolve 

naturally from the pharmaceutical background of the faculty member’s training or research 

interests. However, many Pharmaceutical Sciences faculty do not have a strong pharmaceutical 

background and therefore the courses they are trained to teach have significant overlap with 

those in other basic science departments on campus. Courses are often offered every other 

year to increase enrollment and reduce faculty teaching loads. The benefits of more courses 

taught by division faculty would appear to be at least two‐fold. First, the faculty will be able to 

control the content of the courses if they are taught within our Division. This would solve 

previous problems in which courses in other departments are required in our curriculum. 

Second, a strong collection of courses will give a greater sense of identity to the program 

overall, and the faculty in particular, and can be useful to clearly indicate to prospective 

students the educational focus of our program. This would clearly bolster graduate student 

recruiting efforts. Thus, we see an opportunity for improvement in this area and have initiated 

efforts to increase the quantity and quality of our graduate course offerings. One possible start 

is to initiate student seminar courses in both the Drug Action and Drug Discovery cores. 

Uniqueness of the 780 Course, “Introduction to Pharmaceutical Sciences” 

As discussed briefly above, PharmSci 780 is a multidisciplinary course required of all first year 

graduate students in the program. It is taught by most of the faculty in the Division and 

consists of three modules, each of which is taught by each of the Division cores (see Appendix 

17 for syllabus, p. A2‐48). The premise of the course is to introduce our students to the entire 

array of science required for the discovery and development of a drug. The initial two lectures 

on drug development are taught by Ed Elder, the director of the Pharmaceutical Experiment 

Station. The breadth of teaching approaches in a way mirrors the breadth of expertise and 

scientific culture in the Division. The Drug Discovery group has used a unique approach utilizing 

both student analysis of primary literature articles and outside speakers from industry to 

illustrate examples of basic research in the area. The Drug Action and Drug Delivery groups give 

a more formalized presentation of the important aspects of pharmacology and drug delivery as 

they pertain to modern drug development. This course is unique on campus to our program 

and provides the opportunity for our students to immediately obtain a broad understanding of 

drug development that will serve as a foundation to their more specialized independent study. 

Since it is a required course in our program, it offers an opportunity for our students to get to 

know each other in the first year. From the graduate student Town Hall meeting and student 

evaluations in previous years, we have found that the course is generally well received. It also 

provides faculty with an opportunity to collaborate in graduate education in many ways that 

are unique and are not present in other contexts. 


Other Program Requirements for PhD Conferral 

As stated above, the Graduate School requires a minimum number of credits (32) for obtaining 

a PhD. In addition, students must pass a preliminary examination for advancement to degree 

candidacy or dissertator status. Finally, the student is required to write and defend a thesis. 

Outside of these requirements, programs have considerable latitude in constructing not only 

the curriculum, but the type of preliminary exam required for candidacy. 

Preliminary Examination 

Our division has historically oscillated between a single preliminary examination requirement 

and a qualifying exam followed by a preliminary exam. As part of our restructuring of the 

curriculum in 2007, we have again adopted the single preliminary examination format. 

Currently the student is required to assemble a thesis committee which acts to guide and 

evaluate the student in both coursework and research ability. The preliminary examination 

consists of a short (5 page) written summary of the student’s research progress to date, 

followed by a 10 page research proposal that is to be defended during the exam. Because of 

the broad spectrum of disciplines in our program across the chemistry‐biology interface, the 

independent proposal can either be on the student’s thesis research or a topic that is 

independent of their research area. 

The aim is for the preliminary exam is taken by the end of the second year. This has been 

moved up from the previous guidelines which stipulated the end of the third year. Our goal is 

to get students to the candidacy stage sooner so they can focus on their research, which also 

facilitates assessment of their suitability for the program. In practice, it has been a challenge to 

keep the students to this timeline, which requires student completion of all coursework, and 

progress monitoring from both the faculty advisors and program director. Annual meetings 

between the Assistant Dean for Graduate Studies and the 1 st and 2 nd year students as a group 

may help facilitate adherence to the deadlines. 

Once the students successfully pass the preliminary examination, they become dissertators and 

are able to focus full time on their thesis research until they obtain their degree. We have 

become concerned about the time it takes for our students to obtain their degree in our 

program. (See Table 2‐14.) The average time to degree in our program now is equal to or 

exceeds six years. By streamlining the path to candidacy, our students will be able to obtain 

Table 2‐14. Number of PhDs, Average Time for Pharmaceutical Sciences PhDs, 1999‐2009 

Year 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 

PhDs 

Awarded 10 5 6 5 11 8 7 8 14 6 5 

Average time 

to Degree (yrs) 5.7 5.9 6.2 6.4 5.9 6.2 5.6* 4.8* 

*These numbers affected by significant number of transfer students due to faculty hiring. 


their degree sooner with greater productivity. The latter may make them more competitive in 

career placement. An additional benefit may be that faculty are more likely to use RA support 

for students that have reached candidacy and have demonstrated the knowledge and skills for 

successful completion of the program. 

As with all of our changes to the curriculum, we will be assessing the effects of the changes on 

student performance and benefits, faculty benefits and the effects on the overall program 

strength and climate. In particular, the effect of the removal of the minor requirement on the 

average student curriculum (number of courses/credits taken, etc.) will be analyzed over time. 

Timeline to Degree 

With the major curricular changes just outlined, we estimate the timeline to PhD completion as: 

YEAR 1 

Program Requirement 

Timeline 

Attend Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Student Orientation Aug 30 ‐ 31 

• Meet with Graduate Program Coordinator and Orientation Advisor Aug 30 ‐ 31, Sept 1 

• Complete and submit Financial/Benefit Forms to PSD Office by Aug 31 

• Register for classes, Fall Semester by Sept 4 

• Optional UW‐Madison "Wisconsin Welcome 2006" activities Aug 26 ‐ Sept 30 

• First day of classes Sept 5 

Choose 3 Lab Rotations: 

Complete Laboratory Rotations Scheduling Form by Sept 8 

• Lab Rotation 1 Sept 11 ‐ Oct. 6 

• Lab Rotation 2 Oct 9 ‐ Nov. 3 

• Lab Rotation 3 Nov 6 ‐ Dec. 1 

Attend Pharmaceutical Sciences Retreat 

To be determined 

Establish a Thesis Lab by Dec 8 

• Complete and return Choice of Thesis Lab Form to PSD Office 

• Begin in Thesis Lab by Dec 11 

• Register for Spring classes and 990 research credits in coordination with 

Thesis Advisor 

Formation of a Thesis Committee 

• Obtain signatures, complete the Thesis Committee Approval Form and 

by Mar 14 

submit form to the PSD Office 

Curriculum Certification Meeting 

• Schedule a Curriculum Certification meeting by May 16 

• Complete Curriculum Certification meeting and submit Curriculum 

by Aug 31 

Certification Form to the PSD Office 


YEAR 2 


Timeline 

Schedule Preliminary Exam with Thesis Committee by May 16 

Complete Preliminary Exam and submit materials to PSD Office by Aug 31 

Submit Research Presentation Requirement Form to the PSD Office by Aug 31 

Complete Pharmaceutical Sciences PhD Major Course Program 

by Aug 31 

Requirements 

YEARS 3‐5 


Timeline 

Schedule Progress Report meeting with Thesis Committee by May 16 

Complete Progress Report meeting by Aug 31 

Submit Research Presentation Requirement Form and Progress Report by Aug 31 

Form to the PSD Office 

FINAL YEAR 


PhD Thesis Defense 

Year 1 of Curriculum 

In the first year of the curriculum, students are matched with a temporary faculty advisor from 

one of the three cores which best matches the student’s background. The temporary advisor 

helps the student choose the Fall semester courses and laboratory rotations (Appendix 18, p. 

A2‐52) and is available for general advising purposes. The primary goal in the first semester is 

to choose a thesis advisor based on a series of three lab rotations. These rotations consist of 

four week periods in which the student has access to the lab and personnel in the lab of their 

choice. The content of the rotations varies. Some faculty expect the students to do 

experiments under the guidance of a graduate student or postdoc, while other faculty do not 

promote this level of involvement, but encourage the student to attend group meetings and 

talk with lab personnel to get a feel for the research and lab environment. It is the job of the 

Program Coordinator under guidance from the Asst. Dean for Graduate Studies to match 

students with faculty for rotations. 

At the end of the rotations, students are given some time in December to talk with faculty and 

make a final decision on their thesis lab. Our expectation is that this decision be made by the 

end of the semester. In some cases, an extra rotation is required, but since the rotations were 

established in 2001, nearly all students have found homes by the beginning of the Spring 

semester. 


Once a thesis advisor has been chosen, Spring courses are selected by the student with the 

assistance of the advisor. In addition, the student with the advisor’s assistance, also selects a 

thesis committee, whose purpose is to follow student progress during their coursework, 

preliminary exam and thesis defense. This committee is made of five faculty members ‐ the 

thesis advisor, two faculty from within the core, one additional faculty member from the 

division, and a faculty member from a department outside the program whose expertise will 

assist the evaluation of the student and provide additional guidance. 

Year 2 of Curriculum 

In the second year, the student takes additional coursework, mostly in their area of expertise, 

and completes the preliminary examination. 

Preliminary Exam 

The preliminary exam is an oral exam with the thesis committee based on two written 

documents. The first is a short (5‐page) written summary of the student’s research to date. 

This forms the subject of the first part of the oral examination. The second document, and the 

subject of the second part of the questioning, is an NIH‐style original research proposal written 

independently by the student. The proposal can be based on either the student’s thesis 

research or an independent research topic. During the exam, the thesis advisor may ask 

questions of the student, but is not allowed to answer questions on behalf of, or advocate for, 

the student. After the exam, the thesis committee decides whether the student has passed the 

exam, passed pending some revisions or has failed the exam. It is also possible that the 

committee will ask the student to retake the exam at a later date. In some cases, the student 

who has failed the exam will be terminated from the program. It is expected that students 

complete this requirement by the beginning of the third year. Provided they have the proper 

number of course requirements, upon passing the prelim, the students achieve dissertator 

status. This implies that their only remaining requirement is to write and defend their PhD 

thesis while achieving 32 credits (including research credits) with an average grade of B. 

Years 3‐5 of Curriculum 

Once the student has achieved dissertator status, yearly meetings with the thesis committee 

and a progress report are required to ensure satisfactory progress toward the degree. 

Research Presentation Requirement 

At some point during their time in the program, the student must also pass a research 

presentation requirement. This may be satisfied by presenting a research talk to at least two 

Division faculty in a variety of approved settings, including joint group meetings or Division 

seminars. This is a new requirement in the program. As with all of the new initiatives in our 

program, we will be assessing the ways in which the requirement is fulfilled as well as its 

effectiveness in improving the overall communication skills of our graduate students. 


Thesis Defense 

The thesis defense is a two part presentation of the student’s finished thesis. Part one is a 

public research presentation about the major findings of the student’s research. Part two 

requires the student to defend the research by answering questions from the thesis committee 

in a closed session. 

Cases of Unsatisfactory Student Progress 

Unsatisfactory student progress as evidenced by poor course grades may be remediated with 

approval of the thesis committee and thesis advisor after a probationary period. 

In cases of unsatisfactory progress in research as deemed by the thesis advisor or thesis 

committee, the advisor has the right to terminate his/her role as advisor. In cases of student – 

advisor conflict, the following steps have been outlined in the student handbook to resolve the 

situation: 

If a problem between a student and Thesis Advisor occurs, the following steps should be 

taken: 

1) The student and Thesis Advisor should attempt to resolve any differences through one‐onone 

discussions. 

2) If the student is not satisfied with the result, the student should present the problem to 

another member of his/her Thesis Committee. 

3) At the same time, the student must notify the PSD Office of this action 

4) In the event that the student does not yet have a Thesis Committee and/or Thesis Advisor, 

the student should contact their assigned orientation (temporary) advisor. 

5) At the same time, the student must notify the PSD Office of this action 

6) If the student is not satisfied with the result, the student should present the problem to the 

PSD Chair Office, which will work toward mediating a solution. 

7) If a solution requires a laboratory change within PSD, the PSD Program may be able to 

provide financial support for a one month rotation. 

8) Following the change, the new PSD Thesis Advisor will provide the student's source of 

funding. 

Due to recent events of this nature, this policy is currently under review by the School’s 

Graduate Studies Committee. Exact procedures for resolving conflict and deciding whether 

displaced students are able to seek new advisors within the division have not been adequately 

assessed and codified. The Division currently is not in favor of supporting students (e.g., with 

TAs, fellowships, etc.) who seek thesis advisors outside of our regular or affiliate faculty. This 

stance needs to be clarified in regards to the Graduate School treatment of Pharmaceutical 

Sciences graduate students as being officially students of the Graduate School. Our intention is 

to give the thesis committee a larger role in assisting the faculty thesis advisor in termination 

decisions as well as determining the official outcome of whether a student is allowed to remain 

in the program or is terminated. Our goal is to have unambiguous guidelines to ensure fairness 

and clarity going forward with such potentially difficult cases. A temporary policy has been to 


provide one semester of support to the displaced student to find a new advisor, after which 

time the student may be dismissed from the program. 

An additional resource on campus for student‐advisor disputes is the Ombuds office. The 

current Ombuds is Rosa Garner, whose office in the Medical School provides a convenient 

impartial arbitrary source to conflict resolution who has been used successfully in our program 

in the past. We now routinely introduce Ms. Garner during to the first year students during our 

graduate student orientation at the beginning of every year. 

Teaching Training for Graduate Students 

The opportunity for graduate students to teach is offered in their capacity as Teaching 

Assistants, largely for courses in the professional curriculum. However, these opportunities 

vary widely depending on the particular course. One of the Action Items in the School’s 

strategic planning document is to explore ways to increase teaching opportunities for graduate 

students. The Assistant Dean for Graduate Students has brought up the topic in Graduate 

Studies Committee meetings and a number of options have been explored. One option of 

formal Certificate Programs, either at the University or School level was considered, but the 

level of commitment is high and the relevance to Pharmaceutical Science teaching was not 

clear. One informal initiative that has begun is to request that course coordinators give TAs a 

greater role in instruction. Examples are to assign TAs to run discussion sections or to give a 

small number of lectures during the course which could be evaluated by students and 

instructors to provide useful feedback to the student. In addition, the student would have the 

hands‐on experience of actually teaching a course that is relevant to their future career 

trajectory. After assessment of this initiative, most likely by a survey of the TAs and by reading 

student evaluations, a decision will be made on whether to formalize this as a requirement of 

the program so that every student will have as part of their portfolio a written assessment of 

their teaching abilities to date. Such a portfolio may be an advantage to those students who 

wish to pursue career paths where education is the primary focus. 


E. Faculty 

Current Faculty and Organization 

Currently the Pharmaceutical Sciences Division has 22 tenured/tenure‐track faculty, 2 

instructional academic staff, and 4 affiliate faculty. Among the 22 tenured/tenure‐track faculty 

are 12 full professors, 4 associate professors and 6 assistant professors. 

Below is a list of the faculty and the core with which they are identified. The core designation 

below is by largely by teaching considerations. Designations based on research interests or 

recruiting of grad students may be slightly different based on faculty preferences. Some faculty 

wish to be listed in multiple cores for the purposes of graduate student recruiting. Although 

entering students are also organized loosely into cores for temporary advisor assignment, they 

have full freedom to choose their thesis advisor among the entire division faculty, and this is 

communicated to them clearly at orientation. The grouping of faculty into cores is meant to 

facilitate planning and communication between the Chair and faculty and to make decisions 

concerning teaching needs and assignments. Hiring decisions are discussed at the division 

level, and considerations of core structure, in terms of teaching and research needs, have been 

influential in these decisions. 

The organization of faculty into these core areas is not meant to be restrictive and can in 

principle be a fluid construct. The construct has not been without criticism from division 

faculty, who feel that at times it may be unnecessarily restrictive, especially in the area of new 

faculty hires. This is a significant and evolving subject in faculty governance within the division. 

Current Active Faculty by Core (Rank): 

Drug Action Core 

Drug Delivery Core 

Arash Bashirullah (Asst. Prof.) Ron Burnette (Assoc. Prof.) 

Margaret Clagget‐Dame (Prof.) Melgardt de Villiers (Assoc. 

Lara Collier (Asst. Prof.) 

Prof. CHS) 

Warren Heideman (Prof.) W. John Kao (Prof.) 

Jeff Johnson (Prof.) 

Glen Kwon (Prof.) 

Paul Marker (Asst. Prof.) Sandro Mecozzi (Assoc. Prof.) 

William Mellon (Prof.) 

May Xiong (Asst. Prof.) 

Steve Oakes (Asst. Prof. CHS) Lian Yu (Prof.) 

Richard Peterson (Prof.) 

Drug Discovery Core 

Timothy Bugni (Asst. Prof.) 

Richard Hsung (Prof.) 

Charles Lauhon (Assoc. Prof.) 

Lingjun Li (Assoc. Prof.) 

Jeanette Roberts (Prof.) 

Ben Shen (Prof.) 

Weiping Tang (Asst. Prof.) 

Jon Thorson (Prof.) 

Emeritus Faculty 

Paul Bass 

Kenneth Connors 

Tim Heath 

Ulfert Hornemann 

Richard Hutchinson 

Dexter Northrop 

Daniel Rich 

Tom Rudy 

Charlie Sih 

Judith Thompson 

George Zografi 


Affiliate Faculty (Department) 

Ralph Albrecht (Depts of Animal Sciences/Pediatrics) 

Adnan Elfarra (Dept of Comparative Biosciences, School of Veterinary Medicine) 

Lauren Trepanier (Dept of Medical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine) 

Jamey Weichert (Dept of Radiology) 

Note: Affiliate Faculty have the ability to be thesis advisors for Pharmaceutical Sciences 

graduate students and are involved in graduate student recruiting. 

Faculty Turnover 

In the last few years, the demographics of the Pharmaceutical Sciences faculty have changed 

dramatically. Over one‐third (9) of the faculty retired, one Associate Professor left for another 

institution and we lost two Assistant Professors (one left for another university and the other 

resigned). To replace these faculty members, the Division has hired 7 Assistant Professors, one 

Full Professor and we currently have one open faculty search. As discussed in detail in the 

Resources section, this has placed a significant strain on laboratory resources such as space and 

startup funds. There is little room in the current facility for faculty research groups to expand. 

Teaching By Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty 

Division faculty have significant teaching duties in both the graduate and professional PharmD 

curricula. In addition, some faculty teach undergraduate courses in other departments. The 

division has recently identified a number of challenges in regard to teaching. One of these 

challenges is the recent retirement of faculty with large teaching loads and the subsequent 

absorption of those lectures by new and existing faculty. A second challenge is how to remedy 

the paucity of graduate courses offered by faculty within the division. Recently, the division has 

identified graduate teaching as an area of emphasis. In an effort to find a workable balance 

between teaching load and research productivity, the hiring of lecturers has helped to ease the 

transition. This has been especially important when cores have not been able to replace open 

faculty positions in a timely manner. In the Drug Delivery Core this is currently a concern, as 

retirements and the untimely passing of Prof. Joe Robinson combined with some difficulty in 

replacing these personnel has left a large amount of teaching for a small number of remaining 

faculty. In Drug Action, a combination of retirement and redistribution of efforts of some 

faculty to administration duties has resulted in the hiring of a lecturer. Since the division will 

always have a number of junior faculty that will carry lighter teaching loads, lecturers may have 

a permanent place in transition periods involving teaching in the professional program. 

Teaching Assignment policy 

The Division Chair has sole responsibility for teaching assignments to Division faculty. These 

assignments are distributed based on need and expertise of the faulty. Typically, faculty of 

each core are asked to provide a working list of which faculty will teach each of their courses 

and this is approved by the Chair, with the assistance of the Vice Chairs. However, in certain 

cases, urgent needs are handled directly between the Chair and a given faculty member. 

Teaching loads are sometimes adjusted based on consideration of service load (i.e., a reduced 

teaching load for the Chair, or other administrative positions) and extensive research effort. In 


addition, new faculty at the Asst. Prof. level are protected from having an extensive teaching 

load for the first 3 years so they can focus on establishing their research program. 

Current Teaching Loads 

The total number of lectures in both undergraduate/professional and graduate level courses for 

each of the Division core faculty members for the 2007‐2008 academic year is shown in the 

Appendix 19 (p. A2‐54). The current average number of lectures per faculty member in the 

Division is 32. This number (ca. 30 lectures) has been cited as optimal in our Division; however 

there is a wide spread in the number of lectures per faculty member. Recent and impending 

retirement of faculty with extensive teaching loads and their replacement by junior faculty has 

resulted in a necessary rebalancing of the teaching in the Division. As mentioned above, to 

facilitate the transition, the School has hired lecturers to cover the shortfall during the 

transition period. During the past three years, one lecturer in Drug Action and an additional 

lecturer in Drug Discovery/Drug Delivery were used to teach approximately 90 lectures in the 

2007‐2008 academic year. This is equivalent to 3 faculty teaching loads. Timely replacement of 

faculty in each of the cores will ultimately smooth out teaching load discrepancies, and the use 

of lecturers, while necessary, can be minimized. This will be the approach used going forward 

and helps prevent situations in which faculty have to step in and teach subjects for only one 

year or teach in areas that are outside their expertise. For example, in the Drug Discovery Core, 

the projected range of lectures for the seven faculty members will be a relatively tight range of 

ca. 30‐45 lectures each within the next three years. 

Funding Levels 

Extramural funding at the School as well as the Division level is currently at a historical high. 

The School of Pharmacy was ranked 11 th nationally among Schools of Pharmacy in NIH funding 

with $7.4 million (total costs) received in 2006, of which ca. 90% is garnered by faculty from the 

Pharmaceutical Sciences division. This includes a total of 22 Federal research grants. A total of 

13 Division faculty received NIH grants in 2007, and 3 were awarded grants from NSF. A 

historical compilation of the School’s NIH funding rankings compiled by AACP is included in the 

Appendix 20 (p. A2‐57). It shows that we are currently at historical highs in terms of dollars 

awarded and ranking with other Schools of Pharmacy. More recent data for the last two fiscal 

years is shown in Table 2‐15 below. The recent success of our faculty in obtaining extramural 

federal research dollars is particularly impressive because of the competitive nature of the 

current funding climate. 

Table 2‐15 Pharmaceutical Sciences Awards – Direct Costs (number of awards) 

Source 2007‐08 2008‐09 

NIH $3,579,283 (27) $3,701,988 (26) 

Other Federal 454,698 (11) 510,541 (10) 

Sponsored External 805,387 (9) 847,565 (10) 

Sponsored Internal 405,899 (12) 184,316 (11) 

Total $5,245,267 (59) $5,244,410 (57) 


Faculty Hiring/Mentoring 

Faculty Recruitment Process 

The decision to fill vacant faculty positions or to add new faculty is always based on program 

needs. Prior to any active recruitment, there is a full discussion by the divisional faculty, 

utilizing their strategic plans as a guideline to propose the need for new or replacement faculty. 

Once the divisional faculty have developed an assessment of needs and conferred with the 

Dean, a presentation to the School's Executive Committee is conducted. At this time, a draft of 

the position description may be presented for discussion. Once approved by the Executive 

Committee, the Dean initiates the search and screen procedure in accordance with University 

guidelines. The rules and guidelines provided by the University concern issues such as wording 

of advertisements, deadlines, and other matters of public policy. These guidelines can be found 

on the UW‐Madison’s Office of Human Resources Web site at wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/ohr. 

The search and screen committee appointments are made by the Dean with input from the 

chair of the division conducting the search. The committee meets, finalizes the position 

description, proceeds through appropriate University channels to post the position, and 

advertises the position in selected journals, professional literature, and/or other appropriate 

channels. The process continues as candidates apply with the collection of curricula vitae, 

letters of recommendation, and formal research proposals of intended research projects. 

Those candidates that are deemed most qualified are extended invitations to visit the School, 

present a formal research seminar, and interview with search committee members, the division 

chair, the Dean, and other selected faculty/staff. There is considerable emphasis placed on 

selecting candidates with a history of outstanding research and excellent communication skills 

necessary for their teaching roles. Final selection and/or ranking of the candidates is 

determined by the search and screen committee, and these are presented to the faculty/staff 

of the division. After a thorough discussion, approval is sought by the chair, and the name(s) of 

the candidate(s) is(are) forwarded to the Executive Committee for consideration. The Executive 

Committee makes a final recommendation to the Dean, who extends the offer to the 

candidate. The Dean has veto power over the recommendation, but this veto power has not 

been exercised in recent times. 

Once an offer of a position has been made by the Dean, formal negotiations are undertaken. 

The chair of the division is responsible for setting the agenda, obtaining the start‐up fund 

request, securing appropriate space (office and laboratory), delineating teaching assignments, 

etc. and communicating this to the Dean for his approval. The salary offer is at the discretion of 

the Dean. The Dean next involves the Associate Dean for Research (who chairs the Research 

Committee within the School) regarding availability of funds to support the start‐up request. It 

is the responsibility of the Associate Dean for Research to negotiate with the UW‐Madison 

Associate Dean of the Graduate School for funds to support new faculty hires. The Research 

Committee has at its disposal several sources of monies: state funds from the capital budget 

exercise (including indirect costs from federal grants), non‐federal overhead money, and funds 

obtained from patents. (See Resources section for data on Research Committee funds) 


New Faculty 

In their first year, new assistant professors are hired for a 3‐year contract and assigned a 

mentoring committee by the Division Chair. This committee typically consists of three tenured 

faculty members. Two members are from the division and one external member is from a 

department on campus that is similar to the expertise of the new faculty member to provide an 

outside perspective. The mentoring committee meets annually to review progress, assist the 

new faculty member with any concerns, and to prepare the tenure package for review and vote 

by the executive committee. The evaluation process for junior faculty members during this time 

consists of an examination of teaching quality based on student evaluations, peer review, and 

self assessment; growth in research/scholarly activity; and service to the profession, School 

and/or University. This process is consistent with Faculty Policies and Procedures Chapter 7.05. 

The mentoring committee does a formal review at the three‐year mark, and presents this to the 

Executive Committee, which makes a recommendation to the Dean. Three possible 

recommendations can result from the three‐year review: 1) promotion to associate professor, 

2) termination, or 3) reappointment for one year. The usual procedure is to reappoint the 

candidate for one year and conduct annual evaluations of performance and reappointment 

until the sixth year. For tenure track faculty, the candidate must be promoted or terminated no 

later than the end of the seventh year. 

New Faculty Orientation 

The School has not had a formal orientation process for new faculty. The University does 

provide orientation to the geographical area via periodic bus tours. The purpose of these 

events, which last one week in length is to introduce new faculty to the Wisconsin Idea, which is 

a priority effort to link basic research and service to applications that exist in the surrounding 

community and state. The university also provides an extensive seminar series on teaching, 

grant writing, intellectual property issues and a range of other topics that are geared in part to 

faculty new to Wisconsin. 

This year for the first time, new faculty in Pharmaceutical Sciences are being asked to attend an 

orientation session designed to introduce them to aspects of pharmacy practice and clinical 

research. Currently, nearly all of our new faculty have a basic science background and little or 

no training in Pharmaceutical Science. Spearheaded by Ron Burnette from Pharm. Sci. and 

Barry Gidal from our Pharmacy Practice Division, this orientation will be an opportunity for new 

faculty who have little or no pharmacy background to understand aspects of the School’s 

professional program and clinical research efforts. This should assist faculty in their teaching in 

the PharmD curriculum, as well as provide potential collaboration in research. The first 

orientation session is slated for January 2008. 

Faculty Promotion Procedures 

The School has revisited policies for promotion and voting rights according to the university’s 

Faculty Policies and Procedures documents. Promotion of tenure track Assistant Professors to 

Associate Professors with tenure requires 2/3rds majority vote among tenured faculty at a 


School executive committee. As recently decided by School faculty, CHS track faculty can serve 

in an advisory capacity to assist the voting faculty on tenure decisions. The mentoring 

committee prepares a tenure package that includes data on teaching, research and service, in 

addition to outside letters or reference from experts in the candidate’s research area. The 

mentoring committee chair presents the case to the Executive Committee after the Committee 

has had a chance to review the documents in the tenure package. Following discussion, a 

written ballot is cast for or against promotion. This vote is recorded – if it is positive, it is 

included in the tenure package as it goes forward to the Divisional Committee for approval. 

The Dean has the power to decide on whether to send split votes to the Divisional Committee 

for approval. Before a vote at the Divisional level, the Chair of the Pharmaceutical Sciences 

Division is interviewed by representatives of the Divisional Committee for informational 

purposes. If there is a strong dissent among a subset of the faculty, a faculty representative of 

the Executive Committee will accompany the Chair for the purpose of explaining the dissenting 

opinion. The Divisional Tenure Committee then votes on the tenure case. The Dean may then 

accept (the most common response) or reject (unusual response) the recommendation of the 

Tenure Committee. This action is then communicated to the Provost, who acts for the 

Chancellor. 

Promotion to Full Professor is carried out similarly with the exception that the package is 

assembled by the Chair of the Division, who presents the case to a subgroup consisting of the 

full professors of the Executive Committee. 

Faculty Peer Review 

The Faculty Activities Review Committee is a School‐wide committee that oversees peer review 

of faculty for the purposes of merit pay increases and feedback to faculty about their 

performance in service to the School of Pharmacy’s mission. The committee is chaired by the 

Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs (Ron Burnette) and consists of the Chairs of the three School 

Divisions plus one additional faculty member from each of the those divisions. Faculty are 

asked to complete a Faculty Activities Report detailing their activities in service, teaching and 

research. An important part of the report is a one page narrative in which the faculty have the 

chance to summarize their accomplishments and cite any challenges or unique aspects of their 

service to the School. The committee assigns primary and secondary reviewers to each faculty 

and they are scored and ranked for the purposes of merit assessment. Unfortunately, in recent 

years, there has been a paucity of funds available for merit‐based salary increases. 

Post‐tenure reviews of faculty consist of 5‐year cycles and are an effective tool for focusing 

faculty attention on long‐range career goals. The metric for evaluation by the review 

committee is similar to the annual review criteria. 

Sabbaticals 

The number of faculty taking sabbatical leave in the Division has been historically very low. 

However, this year two faculty members have applied for sabbatical leave, one for the 2008‐9 

academic year and the other for spring of 2009. Teaching duties will likely be accommodated 

by lecturers. 


F. Resources 

Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Facilities Located Within Rennebohm Hall 

Analytical Instrumentation Center (AIC) 

Mission Statement 

The Analytical Instrumentation Center (AIC) of the University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy 

comprises Mass Spectrometry, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy and 

Spectrophotometry Facilities, plus an Electronics Shop. Its mission is to support and foster the 

research enterprise in the School of Pharmacy, the University of Wisconsin and beyond, as 

opportunities exist, by providing state‐of‐the‐art instrumentation and ancillary equipment, and 

expertise in its use and application. Toward these goals, AIC staff provide service components 

where appropriate, education and training of the user community, and collaborative research 

assistance. 

The AIC operates both as a service laboratory with staff to assist and collaborate with 

researchers, and as an open access laboratory for student training and hands‐on use of the 

instruments. The AIC supports basic and applied research in drug discovery, drug delivery and 

drug action. This eight‐room complex houses the following major equipment: The NMR facilities 

are located in Room 1411; (1000 asf; 400 MHz and 500 MHz Varian Inova NMR spectrometers 

and data stations) with Room 1419 (197 asf) used for data analysis. 

The Mass Spec facilities are housed in Rooms 1418 and 1420 (389 and 350 asf; LC‐MS (Agilent 

1100 HPLC‐MSD SL ion trap mass spectrometer with an electrospray source and Agilent 1100 

HPLC‐MSD quadrupole mass spectrometer) and FT‐MS (IonSpec ultrahigh resolution Fourier 

transform mass spectrometer with an external MALDI source) respectively). 

Administration 

Thomas Stringfellow, PhD, Director NMR Facility 

Cameron Scarlett, PhD, Director Mass Spec Facility 

Gary Girdaukas, Mass Spec Facility, Spectrophotometry and Electronics Shop 

Advisory Board 

Tom Stringfellow (chair) 

Ed Elder (Pharmaceutical Exp Station) 

Jill Kolesar (Pharmacy Practice Division) 

Chuck Lauhon (PharmSci Division) 

Lingjun Li (PharmSci Division) 

Rick Ridgewell‐Covance 

Jon Thorson (PharmSci Division) 

Martha Vestling‐Chemistry 

Warren Heideman, ex officio (Assoc Dean Research) 

The charge of the AIC Advisory Board is to advise the Director on policy issues, financial 

planning, maintenance and operation and personnel for the facility. In addition, the Board will 


act as a conduit for communication of such policies with the faculty and the Research 

Committee. 

Instrumentation 

NMR Spectroscopy 

Varian Unity‐Inova 400 MHz NMR Spectrometer 

• Varian quad‐nucleus probe, capable of 1 H and 19 F detection (high band) and 13 C and 31 P 

detection (low band), plus X (low band) tunable between 15 N and 31 P (e.g., 7 Li, 15 N, 17 O, 

23 Na, 29 Si, 77 Se, 119 Sn) 

Varian Unity‐Inova 500 MHz NMR Spectrometer 

• Varian triple‐resonance, inverse‐detection probe, capable of 1 H{ 13 C/X} experiments, 

with X tunable between 15 N and 31 P 

• Protasis/MRM inverse‐detection, capillary probe, capable of 1 H{ 13 C} experiments, with a 

5 µL sample volume (for mass‐limited samples) 

• Nalorac quad‐nucleus probe, capable of 1 H and 19 F detection (high band) and 13 C and 31 P 

detection (low band) 

Mass Spectrometry 

IonSpec ProMALDI FT Mass Spectrometer 

• Matrix assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) source with hexapole ion 

accumulation and cooling 

• 7 Tesla, actively shielded, superconducting magnet 

• 192‐sample target plates 

Agilent 1100 HPLC‐MSD SL Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer 

• Binary pump HPLC with microvacuum degaser 

• Temperature controlled, 100‐vial autosampler 

• Dual column oven with a column switching valve 

• UV/Vis diode array detector 

• Orthogonal pneumatically assisted electrospray (ESI) and atmospheric pressure 

chemical ionization (APCI) sources 

Agilent 1100 HPLC‐MSD SL Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer 

• Binary pump HPLC with microvacuum degaser 

• Temperature controlled, 100‐vial autosampler 

• Dual column oven with a column switching valve 

• UV/Vis diode array detector 

• Orthogonal pneumatically assisted electrospray (ESI) and atmospheric pressure 

chemical ionization (APCI) sources 

Agilent 1100 HPLC‐MSD VL Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer 

• Quaternary pump HPLC 

• 100‐vial autosampler 

• UV/Vis variable wavelength detector 

• Atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) source 


Table 2‐17. Analytical Instrumentation Center (AIC) Fiscal Policies 2007–2008 

UW Users 

Non‐UW Users 

Mass Spectrometry Fees 

• MS (Infusion or APCI) $40 $58.20 

• MS n $40 $58.20 

• LC/MS $130 $189.15 

• LC/MS(+1)* $50 $72.75 

• Accurate Mass MS $60 $87.30 

• Hourly charge+ $60 $87.30 

NMR Spectroscopy Fees 

• Hourly spectrometer rate $3 $100.00 

• Hourly service charge# $0 $25.00 

* Charge is applied to LC/MS experiments for which multiple runs do not require column or solvent 

changes. 

+ Hourly charges are incurred for report writing and data interpretation and for some aspects of method 

development. 

# Hourly service charge is incurred for data acquisition, processing, analysis, report writing and other 

similar functions. 

Note: SoP faculty receive a 75% supplement to offset the mass spectrometry charges. 

Zeeh Pharmaceutical Experiment Station 

The Lenor Zeeh Pharmaceutical Experiment Station serves as a base for the education and 

training of academic and industrial scientists in various aspects of the drug product 

development process. The Station also provides physicochemical characterization, formulation, 

and related preclinical support of promising compounds and products of biotechnology 

discovered by faculty researchers across the UW‐Madison campus. Taking advantage of the 

strong pharmaceutical sciences faculty in the School of Pharmacy, the Station also contributes 

to the training of drug product development personnel and enhances the stature of the School 

and UW‐Madison in research related to pharmaceutical development. Through practical work 

in drug development on compounds discovered by UW‐Madison researchers and at UW‐ 

Madison‐based ‘startups” located in the University Research Park, the Station hopes to 

generate economic growth for the University and the Madison community. The Station is 

currently housed on the second floor of the building. 

Administration 

Ed Elder, PhD, RPh – Director 

Mark Sacchetti, PhD – Scientific Director 

Karen Jones ‐ Research Scientist (Lab Manager) 

Anne Schuelke ‐ Associate Research Specialist 

Lynn van Campen, PhD ‐ Consultant 

Jeffrey Williams ‐ Research Specialist 


Advisory Board 

Kenneth Connors, PhD (Prof. emeritus, Pharm. Sci.) 

Melgardt deVilliers, B.Pharm., MSc, PhD (Assoc. Prof, Pharm. Sci) 

Derek J. Hei, PhD (Dir., Waisman Clinical Biomanufacturing Facility) 

W. John Kao, PhD (Prof. Pharm. Sci.) 

Richard A. Pyter, PhD (Abbot Labs) 

Jeanette Roberts, PhD, ex officio (Dean, School of Pharmacy) 

Thomas Rosanske, PhD (PPD, Inc.) 

Ben Shen, PhD (Pharm. Sci.) 

Mehran Yazdanian, PhD (Cephalon, Inc.) 

George Zografi, PhD (Prof. emeritus, Pharm. Sci.) 

Capabilities 

Laboratory services provided by the Station cover a range of pharmaceutical development 

associated capabilities with flexibility to respond to each clients’ unique pharmaceutical 

development challenges: 

• drug substance and excipient physical/chemical characterization (pre‐formulation) 

• drug property prediction 

• analytical methods development 

• drug substance stability analysis 

• non‐GLP pre‐clinical formulation development, analysis, and stability assessment 

• basic formulation development (pre‐cGMP), analysis and stability assessment 

• collaborative short‐term or long‐term research and development for non‐traditional 

pharmaceutical‐related opportunities 

• “Core Laboratory” involvement in grant work 

Education 

In pursuit of its educational mission, the Station offers a coherent program of education and 

training in drug product development that brings the relevant science and technology together 

in the context of regulatory science and business. Station sponsored "short courses" in this 

domain enable scientists and technical managers to increase their skills and knowledge in the 

process and science of drug product development. The Station also extends similar educational 

opportunities to UW‐Madison graduate students in pharmacy and other scientific disciplines, to 

gain hands‐on experience in the various aspects of preclinical drug development that will 

become part of their future work in the pharmaceutical industry. 

UW Medicinal Chemistry Core (MCC) 

In a project supported by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), the Division 

elected to provide over 400 ft 2 (an interior office and two interior laboratories) to a new 

initiative—the UW Medicinal Chemistry Core (MCC), a subset of the UW’s Small Molecule 

Screening Facility. 


Rennebohm Hall Facilities Prognosis 

Although the School provides about 60,000 asf research space in Rennebohm Hall, all the 

laboratory space is now filled. Current research laboratory space will not allow expansion of 

graduate and research programs without exceeding OSHA standards for lab safety. Many senior 

faculty have recently retired, and anticipated new high‐quality faculty will deserve, require, and 

demand more laboratory space. As animal care space is already at capacity, this creates 

additional difficulties in replacing senior faculty in the drug action area. 

This puts substantial constraints on our ability to provide the highest quality training for the 

next generation of pharmacists. The PharmD‐PhD program and integration of some PPD 

research initiatives with PharmSci research are being expanded in order to attract more 

students to the academic world. These efforts will also generate additional demands on existing 

laboratory space. These issues can be alleviated by construction of additional facilities. 

The University long‐range campus plan was developed in 2004 and is continually being 

updated. The space limitations of Rennebohm Hall are well known and a Pharmacy Annex is 

part of the current long‐range plan but in the meantime, creative solutions to the current 

problem will have to be implemented. 


G. Program Climate 

We have undertaken a number of initiatives to address climate issues among the students and 

faculty of both the Division and the School as a whole. The School hired a Director of Diversity, 

Amber Ault, who has assisted with graduate student orientation and recruitment, faculty search 

committees, and was available for individual and group consultation. Unfortunately, Ms. Ault 

left in 2008 and will not be replaced in the near future due to the current budget climate. Rosa 

Garner, the current omsbud, is positioned nearby in the Health Sciences Learning Center, and is 

available to resolve disputes among students, faculty and staff. As mentioned, Ms. Garner also 

participates in our annual graduate student orientation which we provide at the beginning of 

every year for all incoming School of Pharmacy graduate students. 

Graduate Student Orientation 

A week before classes begin in the fall, new graduate students are welcomed with an all‐day 

orientation to the program, the facilities and the people with whom they will interact for the 

duration of their graduate education (Appendix 21, p. A2‐62). Included in the morning talks are 

sessions on conflict resolution, diversity and sexual harassment. These presentations let the 

students know that there are trained personnel whom they can turn to when grievances or 

other climate issues arise during their training. 

Graduate Student Mixer 

Held once per year in the early fall, this social gathering is also the setting for the 

announcement of graduate student awards. Currently, we have monetary awards for 

outstanding TAs (4 $500 awards), outstanding dissertation (1‐2 $1000 awards) and several 

travel awards. The event is an excellent time for new graduate students to get to know other 

students and faculty. An additional aspect of this event is that we invite faculty or other alumni 

who are involved in donations to the School for the purposes of graduate education. The 

invitations are sent in the form of letters signed by the Dean. This helps maintain a link 

between our past, present and future personnel in the School and allows students to 

appreciate the history of the program and its past achievements. 

Student Seminar Program 

As a result of student dissatisfaction with our weekly seminar series (brought up in last year’s 

Graduate Student Town Hall Meeting), we changed our seminar structure. The previous 

seminar series was held on Friday afternoons and was a requirement for graduate students in 

the Division (Appendix 22, p. A2‐64). Afterward, refreshments were usually served, and this 

provided a convenient time for students and faculty to interact in an informal setting that is 

built around a scientific seminar given by an outside speaker. However, faculty attendance at 

the seminar was poor and the range of speakers was broad but the talks were aimed at a very 

specific audience. This alienated many students (and faculty) and was the primary cause for the 

changes. 

Our new approach has two tiers. The first is a colloquium series which includes our 

endowment‐funded seminars, in which we invite highly visible research scientists to give talks 


to a more general audience. This includes the Rennebohm Lecture series, sponsored by the 

Rennebohm Foundation, which has featured a number of Nobel laureates. The seminar 

attracts students and faculty from all over campus and is a successful way to integrate our 

students with other students on campus. The other major seminar series is the Busse Lecture, 

given by an outstanding scientist in the Drug Delivery research area, and the new Hutchinson 

seminar which features speakers in the area of natural products/drug discovery research. In 

addition to these lectures, colloquia include other high profile scientists giving invited lectures 

in each of the three core areas. In addition to faculty initiated seminars, there is a student 

initiated seminar selected by students of the AAPS chapter. 

The new second component of our seminar program consists of student run seminars that have 

been separated into separate sections by the individual core. For years, the Drug Delivery core 

has been running a successful seminar course in which graduate students present their 

research to their peers and faculty on a regular basis. Each student presents during the 

semester and receives feedback from students and faculty. This approach has now been 

expanded to the Drug Action Core as well. The Drug Discovery Core has taken a compromise 

approach in which students present their research at a number of “super group” meetings 

involving multiple research groups within the Drug Discovery core. In addition to the student 

seminars, outside speakers will be featured throughout the year in the various cores with the 

hope that a more focused audience will result in greater attendance and participation by both 

students and faculty. 

Student Research Retreat 

This year (Jan 2008), the graduate students held a half day research retreat on campus but 

away from Rennebohm Hall. This forum was attended by over 50% of the students and 

consisted of a series of research talks by students and postdocs. The purpose was to allow 

students to become familiar with research in the Division and more importantly to get to know 

each other better without intrusion from a large number of the faculty. Refreshments were 

provided by the School. It is anticipated that this event will be held at least annually as a way 

for the students to organize and develop leadership within their group and communication 

avenues with the faculty. A list of the speakers and participants is found in the Appendix 23 (p. 

A2‐65). 

New Faculty Orientation 

This program was detailed in the Faculty section of this report. Briefly, the main purpose is for 

new faculty who have not had significant exposure to pharmacy undergo a short training 

session to understand the profession and objectives of the professional curriculum. Through 

raising this awareness it is hoped that our faculty will be sensitive to the educational needs of 

the professional students and a better understanding of the role pharmacy practice faculty 

serve in the education of the PharmD students. 

Collaborative Teaching Efforts within School of Pharmacy 

Last year, a new course entitled “Integrated Pharmacy” was introduced jointly by Ron Burnette 

of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Barry Gidal of the Pharmacy Practice Division and David Mott, of 


the Social and Administrative Sciences in Pharmacy Division. The effort was the result of the 

School’s 2006 Teaching Innovations Award and is geared toward first‐year PharmD students. 

The interdisciplinary course is designed to demonstrate how the School’s disciplines 

complement each other in the practice of pharmacy. Information is centered on case studies in 

the treatment of a variety of diseases from the perspective of basic science, clinical and social 

and administrative aspects of treatment. 

Student Governance Opportunities 

Currently, formal opportunities for students to have a say in how the Division is run are few. 

There is a spot for a student on the Grad Studies Committee, which is chaired by the Asst Dean 

for Grad Studies and looks at policies and procedures of the graduate program, including TA 

assignment policy, student awards, mechanisms of student support and any issues related to 

the graduate program. There are also 4‐5 students who are on the Graduate Admissions 

committee to help with planning and execution of the recruiting weekend. This is a timeconsuming 

role but is crucial to show potential students what our students are like. 

Recently, we have implemented a committee of student point persons who will meet monthly 

with the Chair and Vice Chairs for the purpose of disseminating and receiving information 

addressing student concerns. One student from each of the three Division cores is chosen to 

make up this group. They are chosen by the students during the research retreat. 

Student societies play an important role in graduate and professional student life. 

Pharmaceutical Sciences graduate students have been very active in maintaining a Wisconsin 

student chapter of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. The Chapter was 

formed in 2002 with the mission of promoting Pharmaceutical Sciences and activities include 

attending national meetings, sponsoring seminars in the Division and maintaining a website 

(http://uwaaps.blogspot.com). 

Graduate Student Town Hall Meetings 

This format was attempted for the first time in Nov of 2007 and was a success. Students were 

invited to give their opinions about a variety of topics related to the curriculum, degree 

requirements, mentoring, the seminar program, TAs, teaching opportunities, as well as 

recruiting and funding issues. Faculty present included the Chair and Vice Chairs, the 

Admissions committee Chair, and the Coordinator of the Seminar Program. In addition, a 

suggestion box was instituted so that students who did not want to speak up during the 

Meeting could provide suggestions. Our first meeting produced 16 attendees, about one third 

of our current students. We met for over one hour on a variety of topics. A list of the potential 

topics (all of which were discussed) is included in the Appendix 24 (p. A2‐68). It was 

unanimously decided that we will implement these meetings in the future as a way of gaining 

important feedback about our program from the students in a timely manner. 

Alumni Surveys 

As part of this self‐study, we have implemented for the first time a graduate alumni survey, 

which includes a series of questions about the alumnus and his/her thoughts about the quality 


of their graduate education in our program (Appendix 16, p. A2‐39). Included are questions 

about climate while they were in our program. The survey was conducted online in August of 

2009. It is our intention to reconnect with our alumni for the purposes of maintaining contact 

and potential fundraising for the purposes of increasing donor support for graduate student 

funding other priority areas. 

In addition, one suggestion that came out of the Town Hall meeting is to have exit surveys of all 

graduate students after they successfully complete their PhD study. The Assistant Dean for 

Graduate Studies has initiated this effort; however, the usefulness of this approach has been 

seen as limited for the most part.

2. Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Program - School of Pharmacy

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