How Are We Doing?
Collaborative Research
In terms of our research goals, our signs of success are clear. We have created effective interschool faculty search committees, which have selected new faculty members of great value to the School and the campus research community as a whole. As a result, many of our recruitment packages have been jointly funded with the School of Medicine.
We successfully competed for space at UCSF's new Mission Bay campus and for space on the Parnassus Heights campus. I thank Tom James and Kathy Giacomini and the many other School faculty members who have worked and lobbied hard for School space.
Chancellor Bishop has been very supportive of our requests for campus priorities. For example he has made a commitment to the School of $1.7 million for an 800 megahertz NMR, which will serve as a resource for the entire campus.
Kathy Giacomini, with Ira Herskowitz in the School of Medicine, has been absolutely exceptional in pushing forward the agenda of pharmacogenomics and pharmacogenetics. It is just amazing to me how many ways Kathy can sell this agenda. She and Ira now have developed one of five main multidisciplinary programs that will galvanize the work on the Parnassus Heights campus. Their program marries the basic, clinical, and applied therapeutics of pharmacogenomics. It is called the Program in Genetics of Complex Diseases and Therapeutics.
Ken Dill was very successful in pulling together a broad group of faculty members to write and apply for a Burroughs Welcome grant to support a new collaborative graduate program, which is essentially an umbrella graduate program in quantitative biology.
Lisa Bero worked with medicine's Stan Glantz to secure the funds to put the tobacco papers online.
In terms of research funding from the National Institutes of Health, we remain number one ahead of other pharmacy schools. But, the total number of grants and contracts we receive remain relatively stable.
Research challenges remain in the face of our successes. We need to recruit new faculty, while working collaboratively and maintaining our strong voice. You all know the questions that arise from close academic collaborations. Questions such as: Where does the training grant sit in a program that is run by two schools? The politics of success can be just as complex as the politics of the struggle to succeed. In the end, the added value of collaboration outweighs any and all challenges.
Staff support is a threat to our research. We simply do not have enough staff. Consider the increasing complexity of compliance alone. Every time we receive a new grant there is more work to do. But because of the state budget cuts we have not been able to increase the size of our staff when we need more staff to handle the complexities of grant administrative requirements. At every turn there are new accounting rules, new FDA rules, new NIH rules.
Furthermore, now that we are soon to be split between Mission Bay and Parnassus Heights, we are challenged to rationalize our School of Pharmacy research agenda. What is the unifying message we take to the public? The answer to this question is critical because one of the keys to our success, to our future, will be private support. We must be able to express the essence of our work in ways that resonate with the philanthropic community.
And we remain challenged to continue to bring together our basic and clinical sciences for the benefit of the public we serve. We need to continue to work hard on speeding the journey from "lab bench to bedside."
New Leaders
In terms of nurturing new leaders in the sciences, our signs of success are many. Our multidisciplinary PhD graduate programs in chemistry and chemical biology and in pharmaceutical sciences and pharmacogenomics have been approved by the University of California. Both programs have applied for training grants, and both have received back positive comments. Our refurbished, interdisciplinary medical information sciences graduate program, which is renamed the program in biological and medical informatics, is attracting strong students. This program will be applying for a training grant. I have mentioned already a new graduate program in quantitative biology.
The challenges? How do we remain equal partners within these multidisciplinary programs? How do we secure student support to attract the best and brightest? And how do we secure the program support to succeed?
Our new Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum is certainly succeeding. The first students to matriculate through this new pathway optioned program will graduate in Spring 2002. The faculty has demonstrated its dedication to making this curriculum work. Faculty members have introduced new teaching methods and new courses, including those in: study design, health economics, pharmacy practice, informatics, pharmaceutical care, advanced management, research design, drug discovery, bioanalysis, drug development sciences, pharmacokinetics in drug development, research administration, pharmacogenomics, pharmacoepidemiology, and
decision analysis.
But challenges remain. We need to diversify experiential coursework and clarify competencies for the curriculum pathway in pharmaceutical care. We need to maintain continuous quality by continuously evaluating our curriculum. We need the resources to carry out this agenda. We need to nurture our own faculty members and provide them with the training they need to teach in new ways. And we need to nurture our without salary faculty in similar ways.
Resources
I turn next to resources: space, people, and money. I address the successes and challenges of each individually.
First, space. Space on the Parnassus Heights campus in the departments of biopharmaceutical sciences and clinical pharmacy is under renovation. We secured "future" space at Mission Bay for numerous programs and on Parnassus Heights for the interdisciplinary Program for Genetics of Complex Diseases and Therapeutics. A grant was funded and matched at $1 million by Chancellor Bishop to renovate space on Parnassus Heights so that we can physically carry out the research in pharmacogenomics for which Kathy Giacomini and colleagues have been funded. And we have worked long and hard to develop a space plan for Parnassus Heights that would consolidate our many locations, provide interim room for clinical research, and a decent place in the short term for our Doctor of Pharmacy students to congregate.
At the same time, we are still space poor. We are challenged to make real our vision for a new building dedicated to pharmaceutical science, expand significantly space for our department of clinical pharmacy where faculty now double-bunk in offices that were once miniscule exam rooms, secure ample space on Parnassus Heights in the longer term for our students in New Toland Hall. And we are challenged to somehow connect what will soon be an even more disparate School citizenry stretching from one side of The City to the other, and from one end of the state to the other.
On the people side, we are truly fortunate. We have hired terrific new faculty members in chemical biology, pharmacogenomics, health services research and clinical pediatrics. Welcome Drs. Pamela England, Su Guo, Kathryn Phillips and Sharon Youmans respectively. Five faculty searches are now open.
We are saddened by the loss to disease of two dear colleagues: Peter Kollman and John Gambertoglio. And we are challenged by the loss of other colleagues to other opportunities. The department of biopharmaceutical sciences has been especially affected by the latter where numerous faculty positions remain unfilled.
We have no net new faculty positions or net new staff positions and neither is coming from the state. We need to raise funds to create our own endowed faculty positions, partner with industry to create shared faculty positions, and vie successfully for new faculty positions awarded to UCSF for graduate programs.
Resource-wise, I can report some success. Our contract and grant support has remained quite strong. I congratulate the department of clinical pharmacy for maintaining its service contract with the UCSF Medical Center in view of the fact that in order to get the Medical Center deficit down from $30 million to $15 million, other schools are suffering from substantial cuts in support.
The chancellor has given us a permanent cash flow in support of the Doctor of Pharmacy program to keep it out of deficit.
We have had a few fundraising successes. Overall giving to the School has increased, primarily because of big amounts counted as gifts such as the $2.5 million Burroughs Wellcome Award, which is spread over five years. We are working hard on identifying and cultivating potential and significant partnerships with the private sector. Participation in the School's annual fund has increased to 22 percent from 16 percent just a few years ago. Many private schools boast annual fund participation rates of 40 percent or more. We have much work to do in this arena.
In terms of our money challenges, we need resources to attract faculty members and keep them here. Lab renovations, equipment, cost of living, the new covered compensation plan-our minimum needs are astronomical.
Reaching Out
As far as our efforts to reach out beyond our School and market ourselves, we have met with success. We have expanded our presence in internal and external media. We have increased our advocacy and public stance on policy issues. We have a communications plan that encompasses all of our primary target audiences. Many of you have seen the dean's update letters, alumni, and staff newsletters. And a new Web site is under way. I meet monthly with staff at an early morning breakfast, and I meet monthly with our public affairs office.
Our students have played key roles in taking us out into the community. They have sponsored health fairs, led national meetings, and won national leadership awards. Lloyd Young and colleagues in the department of clinical pharmacy have directed special programs for the public, working with state and national government staff, consumer groups, business, and industry.
We have refined the focus and membership of our Board of Overseers, which includes the director of consumer affairs for the state, the head of pharmacy practice statewide for Kaiser Permanente, the CEO of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, the head of worldwide business development for SmithKline Beecham Consumer Health Care. I consult with board members on a regular basis to be sure we are in touch with their environments, their issues, and ideas and to seek their guidance.
We are challenged in the marketing arena to agree on a vision of who we are as a School. We need to further enlighten our target audiences about the School; develop faculty media contacts; evaluate, expand and update our Web site; and expand our recruitment to attract diverse applicants and applicants from across the nation.
Culture
Culturally, I am most pleased to report that our alumni and staff are engaged. I continue to receive positive comments about the small, monthly breakfasts I hold with staff members. Our response to expanded communications has all been positive. And we have instituted a number of new spirit events: an annual homecoming, receptions for alumni and friends, a White Coat Ceremony for first-year students, social events with School leaders, and greater demonstration of our appreciation of staff efforts through the Bear Hugs program.
Nonetheless our culture is continually challenged by time, physical separation, and differences in norms. Everyone has more to do and less time to socialize. We are physically scattered. We will be even more so after the moving trucks transport a good number of our faculty and staff to Mission Bay. Furthermore, the breadth of our work makes it difficult to embrace the same goals, even the same vocabulary.
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