ETSU officials are optimistic about their chances of getting a new pharmacy school after meeting with consultants from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission Thursday.
However, it will be January before the commission decides between ETSU’s proposal to build the new school and a competing plan from the University of Tennessee to expand its own pharmacy school, said Dr. Ronald Franks, dean of the Quillen College of Medicine.
“There is no way to predict how this will come out at this point,” Franks said. “They captured the strengths of both institutions.”
The schools began a competition for state funds in early fall when ETSU submitted a proposal to build a school to meet the “desperate demand” for pharmacists in Tennessee, especially in rural and underserved areas.
When ETSU officials submitted their plan, UT reacted quickly with its own proposal to expand its Memphis pharmacy school to Nashville and Knoxville.
To resolve the issue, the commission hired consultant Dr. Jordan Cohen, dean of the University of Iowa’s pharmacy school, to study both proposals and make a recommendation.
Franks, along with representatives from the Tennessee Board of Regents and UT, met with Cohen, who gave a summary of the two proposals during the commission’s fall quarterly meeting Thursday morning.
Cohen also raised questions that need to be addressed by both schools before he submits his final recommendation to the commission in mid-January, Franks said.
Cohen’s concerns involved:
* Whether ETSU’s budget is realistic, since it relies heavily on tuition. That could leave the school’s funding vulnerable to any future drop in the demand for pharmacists;
* ETSU’s ability to recruit faculty for the school;
* Whether local pharmacists will commit to taking part in the community training sites offered in ETSU’s plan;
* UT’s need to address the perception that their program is focused on West Tennessee;
* The focus of UT’s pharmacy curriculum on acute care, versus the broader, interdisciplinary approach of ETSU’s plan;
* UT’s ability to pay for a new, regional campus in Knoxville.
Franks said he would obtain the collective wisdom of his advisory committee in the next two weeks to answer the questions posed to ETSU.
“We remain optimistic after this meeting,” he said.
Franks was unsure, however, if the state legislature will want to get involved in the process, as it did in 1974 when UT contested ETSU’s decision to establish a medical school. The argument eventually erupted into a political showdown in the Tennessee General Assembly, ending in a one-vote victory for ETSU.
“It’s hard to predict,” Franks said. “It does relate to economic development, and it’s a public policy issue. Your guess is as good as mine.

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