Within days of the January announcement that he had been appointed new dean of the College, Frank J.Ascione, BSPharm’69, PharmD’73, MPH’77, PhD’81, was on the telephone, on the Internet, and on the road, communicating with alumni and friends.Well-wishes poured in from alumni around the globe, many of whom knew Ascione personally from his 39-year association with the College as a student, a teacher, and an administrator. Those who knew Dean Ascione best, understood that the College had acquired more than a competent administrator and leader, it had gained an alumnus with an unshakable loyalty to the College, its traditions, its values.

In this, his first interview as dean,Ascione offers an overview of the College, the internal and external forces that are reshaping pharmacy education and research, and his vision for the College’s future.

Q: You had an established reputation as an accomplished educator, researcher, and senior-level administrator. You could have continued in these roles until retirement. Why did you decide to become dean?

A: When the opportunity to become dean arose, I deliberated whether or not to pursue it. After a great deal of discussion with my colleagues at Michigan and elsewhere, I realized that being dean of the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy is the best job I could imagine. First, because I am maize and blue to the core, and I have always been proud of my affiliation with the College of Pharmacy: as a student, as an alumnus, as a faculty member, and as an administrator. Secondly, we are blessed with a fantastic group of alumni and friends who are admired by the central administration of the University for their loyalty, and for the honor and distinction their achievements bring to the College and the University. Thirdly, I personally know a large percentage of our alumni, having interacted with them or helped educate them over the 39 years that I have been associated with the College. They are friends and valued colleagues, and I am proud of their achievements.

I feel honor and duty bound to give something back, and I believe the best way I can achieve this is by serving as dean.

Q: Describe the state of the College as you begin your fiveyear appointment as dean.

A: We are in the early phase of a five-year, $24.5 million Campaign for International Leadership and Excellence. The achievement of our campaign goals will sustain our commitment to education and research excellence for years to come, and will ensure that a University of Michigan College of Pharmacy degree remains the standard against which other pharmacy schools measure themselves.

We are also in the midst of a $5 million facilities upgrade, which encompasses both research laboratories and classrooms. These renovations are part of a long-term plan, initiated more than 14 years ago, to bring the College and all of its facilities into compliance with modern educational, environmental, and safety standards. All classroom and laboratory space will be modern throughout the College, which will enhance the education of our students and accelerate the pace of important research discoveries.

Financially, we are on firm footing, especially relative to other colleges of pharmacy around the U.S. Although state support of higher education has declined significantly, our endowment — combined with generous annual fund contributions from alumni and friends, disciplined fiscal management, and diversified sources of revenue — enables us to do what we do best: teach, conduct research, and honor our service commitments.

Financial support of deserving PharmD, BS, and PhD students continues to be a top priority, and disbursal of scholarship support is at an all-time high. We also continue to provide essential start-up and transition funds to newly recruited or promoted faculty as part of our faculty retention effort, and to make selective investments in equipment and instrumentation essential to carry out our educational and research missions.

Our reputation as innovators and educational leaders is resolutely intact. As a faculty member, I was aware of the reputation for excellence that our College enjoys inside the University, as well as nationally and internationally. But it wasn’t until my travels as dean designate over the past few months that I truly understood how pervasive and strong our reputation is.

Q: What are the major challenges confronting our College?

A: Declining state support for higher education is without a doubt the biggest challenge because it has a direct, short-term impact on our operating revenues, as well as on the consistent execution of our long-term strategic vision. I do not anticipate that the State of Michigan will ever fund higher education as it used to. Because financial stability is critical to carrying out our education, research, and service missions, we’ve taken an aggressive, proactive approach to dealing with the new financial realities. Among other things, we’ve implemented rigorous internal cost control measures, boosted our PharmD enrollment to the maximum our space will allow, reduced FTEs, raised the bar in terms of faculty productivity expectations, and have become highly selective in all areas of purchasing of goods and services.

Another looming challenge is our continuing lack of physical space — an issue which was cited in our recent Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) accreditation review. While we will have state-of-the-art facilities at the end of our current construction project, there is no more room in the Pharmacy Building for us to develop or expand into. Lack of space limits our growth potential in several ways: student enrollment, because we lack facilities to accommodate many more students than we currently have; faculty recruitment, because faculty need space to teach, conduct research, and generate research revenues, a significant portion of which accrues to the College’s operating budget; and uncommitted opportunity space, which allows us to initiate new educational and research programs with the potential to generate new revenue streams, educational opportunities, and internal and external collaborations.

A top priority for me is to examine our future space requirement and find a way to get more space, if needed.

Q: You’ve touched upon a few of your top priorities — increasing the level of financial support for students, maintaining a solid financial footing in uncertain times, developing a long-term facilities plan — but how do these items fit into your strategic vision for the College?

A: It is my intent to lead our College to an even a higher level of excellence than it already has in the education of professional and graduate students, pharmaceutical, clinical, and applied research, and the development of innovative practice models. Befitting the interdisciplinary nature of modern science, pharmacy practice, and pharmaceutical research, we will expand our existing interdisciplinary education and research model. We will remain a leader in “bench-top to bedside” pharmacy education and research encompassing the full cycle of health care from drug discovery, to drug development, to medication use, and back to bench-top.

That emphasis on the use of basic science to solve real-life therapeutic problems is an area where our faculty already excel. My intention is to make us even better.

We have already taken decisive steps in this direction with the funding of several centers that will act as magnet facilities to attract new faculty and assist our current ones who excel at collaborative research. The Center for Medication, Use, Economics, and Policy; the Center for Molecular Drug Targeting; and the Clinical Pharmacogenomics Laboratory are now online and all located in our College. In addition, we have developed a joint agreement with the University’s visionary Life Sciences Institute to create a Center for Chemical Genomics headed up by our own David Sherman, John Gideon Searle Professor of Medicinal Chemistry. Several other centers are likely to develop as spin-offs of the Life Sciences Institute, all of which will position us to be world leaders in life sciences, pharmacogenomics, chemical genomics, and allied research. Imagine the educational opportunities for our graduate and professional degree students! They will have learning opportunities here that will be available nowhere else.

Another key area is the development of strategic alliances with other units on campus. A primary focus is with University Hospitals and the Medical Center. Other important collaborations include the Department of Chemistry, the School of Public Health, the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, the Life Sciences Institute, the College of Engineering, and many other units.

We will continue to be aggressive in attracting the best students and educating them in the best possible way. Our graduate and professional degree programs will remain innovative and demanding, and we will improve even more upon our personalized teaching model that puts a premium on faculty mentoring and student contact time. Equally important is exposure to a diversity of new ideas and the opportunity to explore these ideas through mentored research projects. We already have taken steps in our professional program to achieve these goals by revising our curriculum and implementing a highly successful recruitment program. We will do the same with our graduate programs.

Because outstanding faculty attract outstanding students, we must continue to recruit and retain the best faculty in all areas of pharmacy education, practice, and research, and then give them the encouragement and the means to excel. We are constantly on the lookout for faculty members who combine a passion for teaching, research prowess, and a track record of innovation and excellence. We are now engaged in recruiting two such faculty for the Ara G. Paul Professorship and the Hans W. Vahlteich Professorship— both endowed chairs — which will have a significant impact on our productivity. One of the goals of the Campaign for International Leadership and Excellence is to add other endowed chairs, which will boost our recruitment and retention capabilities even more.

Finally, we will continue to reorganize our support services to eliminate duplication of effort, and consolidate functional activities for improved efficiency. We are fortunate to have a dedicated and experienced administrative and clerical staff. Indeed, many of our employees have been at the College for over 10 years. They not only represent the College very well, but their institutional memory allows us to run a tight ship with maximum teamwork and minimal wasted effort or resources. In my estimation, our support services staff is the best at the University.

I believe we have entered a golden age of pharmacy, resulting from the convergence of multiple social, economic, and scientific developments. The career opportunities for graduates in the scientific disciplines we specialize in have never been better. That’s a credit both to the quality of education we offer and to our alumni who epitomize professional excellence wherever they go, whatever they do.

What gives us a competitive edge over other colleges of pharmacy and other disciplines is the quality of the people who make up our extended family: alumni, students, faculty, staff, and friends.

As I said: I cannot imagine a better job than being the dean of the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy.