Council of Deans Business Meeting Minutes, February 8, 2015, Austin, Texas

doi:10.5688/ajpe799S19

Call to Order:

Chair David D. Allen called the meeting to order at 3:30 pm.

Report of the Chair

Chair Allen welcomed Council members and introduced the members of the Council of Dean’s Administrative Board: M. Lynn Crismon, immediate Past Chair, University of Texas; Gayle A. Brazeau, secretary, University of New England; Susan M. Meyer, administrative board representative, University of Pittsburgh; Robert A. Blouin, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, chair-elect, and Jennifer L. Adams, AACP staff liaison to the Council of Deans. Chair Allen moved the Reports of the Committees and Task Force Updates to the Report of the Chair. The Nominations Committee is being chaired by M. Lynn Crismon and this committee is looking for nominations for the Council of Deans Chair Elect. The Resolutions Committee is being chaired by Susan Meyer and no resolutions have been submitted at this time. The Task Force on Conflict of Interest Policy and Practice led by Hershey Bell and the Task Force on Ranking/Ratings Colleges of Pharmacy led by Frank J. Ascione will present their reports at the Annual Meeting in July.

Report of the Secretary – Gayle A. Brazeau

The minutes of the Council of Deans Business Meeting at the July 2014 Annual Meeting were posted on the AACP Website under Governance/Council of Deans and have been published in AJPE Volume 78 Issue 9, Article S17.

Report of the Immediate Past Chair on the Board of Directors Activities – M. Lynn Crismon

COD Immediate Past Chair provided the following summary of the February 2015 meeting of the AACP Board of Directors.

• The Board of Directors has met twice since the July 2014 meeting including a meeting here in Austin last Friday.
• The Association’s financial health is strong despite volatility in the equity markets and a decrease in applicants and applications through PharmCAS. Our auditors returned a clean and timely audit for fiscal year 2014.
• The Association’s launch of a serious education game for interprofessional learning is continuing at this time. Participants at this meeting are encouraged to spend time at this meeting at the Professions Quest display in the foyer to meet the staff and learn more about the game and its launch. This company is a wholly owned subsidiary of AACP. Discussions with potential equity partners are underway with colleague associations in the interprofessional arena.
• With the release of Standards 2016, the association will be developing version 2.0 of the Assessment and Accreditation Management System (AAMS). We anticipate that this new system will be launched in September for those needing to complete the first comprehensive self-studies for fall 2016. Those programs with accreditation visits scheduled through spring 2016 will continue to have access to the original system.
• The Board met briefly on Friday with staff members from ACPE to discuss the new standards. While the Board finds improvements in Standards 2016, the Board sought information regarding the requirement to use NABP’s PCOA and remains unconvinced that imposing the use of the knowledge test as a mandate is justifiable in this era of competency-based education. The Board will be launching the process of identifying a new ACPE Director from AACP later this spring to select an individual in November to serve from July 2016 to June 2022.
• The Board’s strategic planning committee has initiated a new planning process that will extend through this year and result in a new plan in 2016. More information will be provided about the process and opportunities to provide input later in this meeting.
• AACP has received an increasing number of reports from members to form new special interest groups. The requests were tabled in October. It is important to maintain opportunities for member involvement and engagement as a priority for AACP and the strategic planning committee is examining whether the current structure is the best approach or if there are other ways to enhance member connectivity, access to information, identify member’s areas of expertise and to enable the member’s database to be searched for these areas.
• AACP received a grant from the Sewell Memorial Fund to retain a fellow for 2015. Dana Thimons is an information specialist at Nova Southeastern who began working at AACP last month and will guide a project to enhance our approach to Knowledge Management. Identifying our information assets, both within the Association’s data systems and within the membership, and determining the most effective methods of making our information more accessible is the focus of Ms. Thimons’ work.
• The Board has been evaluating the development of a formalized consultant and speaker’s bureau service and has determined that this is an element of both member engagement and knowledge management. A call will be issued to identify individuals who would like to be identified for their expertise in areas such as assessment, curricular reform, student professionalism, etc. to make it easier for schools to identify and engage consultants and speakers for retreats, planning activities and other projects.

Update on PharmCAS and Special Committee on Admissions - Jennifer L. Adams, Thomas TenHoeve and Andrea Wall

Jennifer Adams provided an update on PharmCAS to the Council. Highlights of this report included the current 2015 cycle which has 119 programs at the Pharm.D. level and 12 programs at the Graduate program level and also allows an applicant to use only one application to apply for the Pharm.D. or graduate programs. Other highlights of this report included graphs on the number of participating schools and the number of applicants showing an increase in the number of schools since 2008-2009 but a decrease in the number of applicants from 17,617 in 2012-2013 to 17,365 in 2013-2015. The number of applications has leveled off to 80,497 in 2012 to 80,859 in 2013-2014 with an applicant ratio of 4.57 in 2012-2013 to 4.65 in 2013-2014. She also provided a year-to-date report as of February 3, 2015 showing that there were now 4.3 applications per applicant down from 4.5 in 2014.

Additional 2014 data was on the profile of the entering class with respect to their GPA’s, PCAT Composite, female to male ratio, underrepresented minorities and the number of US citizens for the 116 PharmCAS institutions only. Ms. Adams provided information on the type of Standardized End-of-Year Reports that are available from PharmCAS and listed the top feeder institutions for pharmacy programs. Finally, she also updated the Council on enhancements related to possible extensions of this year’s deadlines, tools that will better integrate with WebAdmit, a future CAS 3.0 Upgrade for applicants in the 2016-2017 cycle and the new program, PharmDirect, which will be useful for students to apply to multiple 0-6/7 or early assurance Pharm.D. degree programs. Additional information on these programs can be obtained from Ms. Katie C. Owings, Manager of Student Affairs at AACP.

The AACP Special Committee on Admissions also provided a report to the Council. This report included the list of committee members on this Special Committee on Admissions, the Committee Charges, an update on the current activities of the Committee and the continued work of this Committee. They also then discussed the proposed Cooperative Admissions Guidelines, the Best Practices, their current suggestions for Cooperative Admissions Offer/Deposit Time Frames and the benefits of cooperative admissions guidelines.

Ad Hoc Task Force on Pharmacy Recruitment – Hershey Bell and Doug Bricker

This Ad Hoc Task Force is investigating this topic and it will be presenting their findings at the Annual Meeting.

Legislative Update and Advocacy – William G. Lang

Will Lang provided an update on activities in the Congress since it reconvened after the first of the year. Important legislation that has been introduced to help those underserved in current health care. This legislation has been introduced by those who understand the role pharmacist’s play in this process. He encouraged members of the Council to develop strong ongoing personal relationships with their representatives and senators at the local and national level and to share the important stories how colleges/schools of pharmacy are involved with patient care, research and public health. We also need to develop good relationships with the NIH and CDC to let these individuals know what Colleges and Schools of Pharmacy are doing to advance research, clinical practice and public health.

Committee and Task Force Reports

These were presented earlier in the Report of the Chair.

Update on AACP Strategic Planning – M. Lynn Crismon

An update was provided on the AACP Strategic Planning Process which will assess a number of different ideas, what is the mission and vision of AACP, what are the goals of AACP and what are the important processes to enable member input. There will be a listening session on Tuesday at this meeting where they will be interested in ideas from the Council.

Old Business – David Allen

Chair Allen also provided the following list of changes in Deans.

• Dr. John Pezzuto is leaving Hawaii later this year to become the Dean at Long Island University.
• Dr. Frank Ascione has retired and Dr. James Dalton has been named Dean of the College of Pharmacy at the University of Michigan.
• Dr. Donald W. Stansloski has retired and Dr. Debra Parker is serving as Interim Dean at the University of Finlay.
• Dr. Sean D. Sullivan has been appointed by the University of Washington as the Dean of the School of Pharmacy.
• Dr. Jack Reynolds will be serving as Acting Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education for the coming 2014-2015 academic year while Dr. David Zgarrick will serve as the Acting Dean of the School of Pharmacy at Northeastern.
• Dr. Cynthia Boyle has been appointed Interim Dean of the School of Pharmacy and Health Professions at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
• Dr. Christine Birnie has been appointed to serve as Interim Dean of the Wegmans School of Pharmacy at St. John Fischer College.
• Dr. Rae Matsumoto has been appointed as Dean at Touro University in California.
• Dr. Gloria Meredith has been named as the Founding Dean at SUNY Binghamton University.
• Dr. Marc Abel will be the Acting Dean at Rosalind Franklin University on April 1, 2015.
• Dr. J. Chris Bradberry is serving as the Interim President of Creighton University and Dr. Victoria Roche is serving as the Interim Dean of the School of Pharmacy and Health Professions.
• Dr. Ronald Maddox has retired and Dr. Michael L. Adams has been appointed Dean of the Campbell University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. He was also recently named acting Vice President for Health Programs.
• Dr. Pierre Moreau has left the Faculty of Pharmacy at Université de Montréal and Dr. Chantal Pharand is assuming the role of Acting Dean.
• Dr. Kishor Wasan is the new Dean of the University of Saskatchewan College of Pharmacy and Nutrition.

New Business – David Allen

There was no new business presented or discussed in Council.

Open Forum – Open Microphone – David Allen

The following three items were discussed in this portion of the meeting:

• A recent CMS Final rule has some unintended consequences, specifically that individuals would not be eligible to prescribe under Part D unless there were a provider in Part B. CMS has been silent on this ruling and a final decision has been delayed until December 2015. CMS needs to hear from members of the Council on this issue as it could affect the future of pharmacy practice.
• Admissions and PCAT – there was a discussion about the new PCAT blueprint as it relates to the CAPE outcomes. PCAT is looking to address some of these issues as related to developing situational judgment testing that can address some the CAPE outcomes. There may be changes in the PCAT including length of the test and customer relationship managements. Information will be provided to programs later this year.
• There was a discussion on issues that are emerging that can have an impact on pharmacy and can there be a time for a discussion of these hot topics. These topics could include changes such as medical marijuana, marijuana legalization and concerns with naloxone distribution. These should be included in the planning future meetings. Two other topics that were suggested is more time for networking and sessions on the Pharmacy Work Force issues.