The school would mesh well with the university's existing health care programs, such as nursing, occupational therapy and physical therapy, said William Cario, vice president of academics for the university. The question is whether the small university in Mequon can raise the money needed to start a program.
"Pharmacy programs are quite expensive," Cario said.
Concordia University would need at least $5 million to cover the school's start-up costs for the first three to five years, he said. It also would need an additional $10 million to renovate an existing building or add a new one to its campus.
The university's annual operating budget is a bit more than $50 million a year.
"We do not have the resources to do this by ourselves," Cario said.
But he said a pharmacy program would fit well with the school's mission of preparing people for service.
Concordia University has 1,600 students in its traditional undergraduate program and 1,900 in its graduate programs. It also has about 2,000 students in a non-traditional adult education program.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has the state's only pharmacy school. And the school's graduates have no trouble finding jobs.
"The demand is certainly greater than the supply," said John Gates, a pharmacist and director of retail pharmacy operations for Aurora Health Care. "And given the attrition in the industry, it's an ongoing problem."
Finding pharmacists to work in rural areas is particularly difficult.
Aurora employs 265 pharmacists at 135 retail sites. The health care system also employs pharmacists at its hospitals.
Pharmacists can make more than $100,000 a year - Gates said the average is about $96,000 a year - and increasing.
"From my preceptive, anything that increases access for pharmacy students is welcomed as long as it's a quality program," Gates said.
UW also is considering ways to expand its program, including setting up a satellite program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee or another campus, said Jeanette Roberts, dean of the UW School of Pharmacy.
The school, which graduates about 130 students a year, is a four-year program that requires at least two years of credits before being accepted. It gets 350 to 400 applicants each year for its 130 slots.
A pharmacy school itself requires pharmacists - not to mention people with doctorates in chemistry and pharmacology among other disciplines. And finding faculty would be hard for either school given the existing shortage and rise in wages.
"It's a difficult time to be expanding," Roberts said.
Concordia University knows this.
The school expects to make a decision by the end of the summer. And the earliest it could start a school would be the fall of 2009.
"That would be our best hope," Cario said.
The first class probably would be 50 to 75 students.
Chris Decker, executive vice president and chief executive of the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin said the group would support another pharmacy school in Wisconsin.
"It will depend on their leadership and their commitment of resources," Decker said. "They can't do it on a shoestring and be successful."
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