University of Minnesota: U of M College of Pharmacy receives grant to continue diversifying pharmacy workforce
To help increase the diversity of the pharmacy workforce and improve overall health outcomes for vulnerable populations, the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy has announced a grant of $750,000 over three years from The McKesson Foundation. The donation will support the launch of two initiatives designed to better support minority doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students and to enhance the diversity of the pharmacy workforce.
The first, the Thrive Kickoff Program utilizes several high-impact educational practices, including learning communities and capstones to provide invited minority and first-generation PharmD students with focused, intentional support so they can thrive academically and interpersonally throughout their PharmD careers.
The second, a racially/ethnically concordant mentoring program, is designed as a layered mentoring model to provide minority PharmD student participants with robust support from the time they are accepted into the program until they graduate as pharmacists.
“This generous grant from the McKesson Foundation will greatly accelerate our ability to launch and subsequently expand these initiatives,” said UMN College of Pharmacy’s Dean Lynda Welage. “It will allow us to offer these programs to more minority PharmD students than we could without the McKesson Foundation’s partnership.”
For years, the College of Pharmacy has committed to recruiting historically underrepresented students and results have reflected this investment. The average percentage of incoming Pharmacy students reporting a race other than white increased from 26% from 2012-2016 to 38% in the following five years, 2017-2022. The College’s programs supported by this grant funding will provide increased support to student pharmacists from diverse backgrounds, a critical component to retaining and graduating traditionally underrepresented students.
The UMN College of Pharmacy is one of five U.S. pharmacy schools to be awarded a grant from the McKesson Foundation, a 501(c)(3) corporate foundation dedicated to advancing health outcomes for all.
“The innovative student support, professional development and community outreach that the McKesson Foundation is funding through pharmacy school partnerships, like the one with the University of Minnesota’s College of Pharmacy, will help transform patient-pharmacist interactions,” said Melissa Thompson, vice president of philanthropic giving and president of the McKesson Foundation. “We believe these types of partnerships will lead to improved health equity and patient outcomes for vulnerable populations in their respective areas, as well as establish program templates that can be replicated in other locations.”