July 30, 2020

Establishment of the UCI School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Dear colleagues:

I am delighted to announce that this afternoon the University of California Board of Regents voted to establish the UCI School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, elevating the program started in 2006 to full school status. It is only the third school of its type in the UC system.

This nascent school, our 14th, is a critical part of the Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences. Its distinguished faculty and talented students will teach, research and learn at the cutting edge of their disciplines and contribute to the delivery of outstanding integrative healthcare to patients across our region and, ultimately, across our nation.

Under the leadership of Founding Dean Jan Hirsch, and already ranked among the top10 pharmaceutical sciences departments in the nation, it will add a Pharm.D. program for practicing pharmacists to its current Ph.D. and other programs training the next generations of researchers and advancing research in the pharmaceutical sciences.

I am grateful to the three leaders of our academic planning unit during the approval process, Professor Judith Stepan-Norris, Interim Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Hal Stern, and Acting Vice Provost for Academic Planning Valerie Jenness, and the academic planning staff for their dedication and hard work in furthering the creation of the UCI School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Please join me in celebrating this milestone in the advancement of the health sciences at UCI. 

Fiat Lux, 

Chancellor Howard Gillman