by Caleb Fort
Daily Lobo
UNM and New Mexico State University regents unanimously approved a program Saturday that will allow students to work toward a pharmacy degree at NMSU.
John Pieper, associate vice president of UNM's pharmacy college, said the collaboration will boost the numbers of pharmacists in southern New Mexico.
"We have in rural New Mexico, particularly in southern New Mexico, a definite shortage of pharmacists," he said.
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Albuquerque has about 120 pharmacists per 100,000 people, he said. Southern New Mexico has about 40, he said.
"One of the ways of attempting to combat this is to work with other universities that have a home base in a different part of the state," he said. "NMSU seemed like an obvious choice."
Jeffrey Brandon, dean of NMSU's College of Health and Social Services, agreed.
"It's very important, because we have far fewer pharmacists per capita in the southern counties," he said. "This will help correct that balance."
UNM has the only pharmacy school in the state.
Under the program, students will go to NMSU for 64 credit hours of pre-pharmacy work and then attend UNM's pharmacy college for three years, Pieper said.
They will then go on a year of clinical rotations in southern New Mexico, he said.
The program will cost about $500,000 to start, which will come from state funds, he said. The money will go toward things such as two faculty members, an administrative assistant and offices in Las Cruces. The funds will also pay for scholarships totaling $150,000, he said.
"We all agreed that this should be something that students should not go into worrying about how they'll pay for it," he said.
The program will have 10 students, who will be recruited from southern New Mexico high schools, he said.
"I think the hardest part of getting this program going will be communicating the value of this program to those high school seniors," he said. "It's really going to be talking about, 'There are wonderful opportunities in this profession.'"
After graduating, the students are supposed to practice pharmacy in southern New Mexico, Pieper said.
"It really is intended to find them, train them and send them back," he said.
Brandon said the hardest part will be getting money from the state.
"Once we have the appropriation, then we just have to find faculty," he said. "They'll have to be just the right kind of faculty for this kind of outreach program."
Don Godwin, assistant dean of the pharmacy college at UNM, said the program will not begin recruiting students until it has received money from the state.
Jamie Koch, president of the UNM Board of Regents, said he is excited about the cooperation.
"It's the start of collaboration," he said. "Of course, we'll still compete with them on the athletic field, and we'll whomp them."
Pieper said the collaboration is good for both universities.
"They get high-quality students going to their university, and we do, too," he said.
Koch said he wants to adopt similar programs for degrees offered at NMSU but not at UNM.
For example, he said he wants students in Albuquerque to be able to take a few years of classes in hotel management and then transfer to NMSU to get a degree.
Pieper said the collaboration does not have to stop with NMSU.
"This is a model, and if we can show that it works here, there's no reason we can't do it in other places," he said. "It's the kind of model we can take and do the same thing at Highlands or New Mexico Tech."
