UNE to Build Pharmacy School in Portland
Thursday, November 16, 2006 - Portland Press Herald

The University of New England will announce today that it plans to open a new college of pharmacy at its Stevens Avenue campus in Portland.

The university intends to introduce plans for a school that will operate in partnership with the University of Maine and Maine Medical Center, said UNE spokesman Steve Price.

Two months ago, UNE officials said they had narrowed the search for a location to two places: an old mill in Biddeford or the school's Portland campus.

Now the school is poised to say it intends to go ahead with the new school at the old Westbrook College campus, which UNE acquired in 1996. UNE officials did not formally announce the site decision Wednesday. But when asked if the location of today's ceremony on the Westbrook campus meant the school will be in Portland, Price said: "I guess one could draw that conclusion."

UNE president Danielle Ripich did not return phone calls and few people close to the decision would provide details regarding the plans.

Officials from the University of Maine have been in discussions with UNE for a few months about a joint venture, said UMaine spokesman Joe Carr.

Carr said students in the four-year pharmacy program will have access to the teaching and research resources at the UMaine campus in Orono, but they will receive diplomas from UNE.

He would not say whether UMaine would make a financial contribution to the pharmacy school.

Maine Medical Center will work with UNE in the new venture by offering rotation and residency programs to students and providing faculty from among MMC's doctoral-level pharmacists, according to MMC president Vincent Conti.

Opening a pharmacy school has been a long-term goal for UNE. The university's board of directors first approved the plan in 1998, provided the school could obtain the money to build. For years, UNE said it would build the school when it could find a host community willing to pay $15 million to help cover start-up costs.

With the inauguration of Ripich as UNE president this summer, the university adopted a more aggressive stance and said it wanted to enroll its first pharmacy students by 2008.

Price said Wednesday the university is working on a timeline that would have a class of 70 to 100 pharmacy students enrolled in 2008 or 2009.

It's not clear how UNE will fund the new school, but apparently the university is casting a wide net.
The president of the Libra Foundation, Owen Wells, said he has had preliminary discussions with Ripich regarding the pharmacy school but the foundation has made no funding commitments yet.

Biddeford officials had hoped proximity to UNE's main campus and an abundance of empty real estate would lure the pharmacy school to a redeveloped mill downtown.

Biddeford Mayor Wallace Nutting said Wednesday he didn't know how the university came to its decision, but the city had a chance to make its case.

"I think the city was given fair consideration," he said.

Regardless of the location, there is little doubt about the need for a pharmacy program in Maine. According to a 2003 survey by the national Association of Chain Drug Stores, Maine had the second most acute shortage of pharmacists in the nation.
In October, Husson College in Bangor announced it also intended to build a pharmacy school that would open in 2008.