Final pharmacy dean candidate to present May 7
LAWRENCE — The founding dean for the High Point University School of Pharmacy is the third candidate who will take part in on-campus interviews for the position of University of Kansas dean of pharmacy.
Ronald Ragan, a professor of pharmacy at High Point University and KU alumnus, is one of three candidates invited to continue in the search process. He will offer a public presentation at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, May 7, in Room 1020 of Pharmacy Building on the Lawrence campus. Each candidate has been asked to present on the topic, “Advancing the Stature and Impact of the KU School of Pharmacy.” Faculty and staff on the KU Medical Center campuses in Kansas City and Wichita will be able to participate through a special audio-video feed. A question-and-answer session will follow.
Members of the KU community are invited to attend the presentation and provide feedback to the search committee, led by Michael Branicky, professor of electrical engineering & computer science and past dean of the School of Engineering.
Ragan has been at High Point University, located in High Point, North Carolina, since 2012. As founding dean of the Fred Wilson School of Pharmacy, Ragan has overseen development of a program that now enrolls 189 students. He also supervised construction of a $95 million facility that opened in 2017. Prior to joining High Point, Ragan held a number of positions at KU. From 2004 to 2012, he was associate dean for academic affairs, managing a variety of curricular affairs for the school. During this span he also served on leadership teams that led the construction of the Pharmacy Building and established the satellite teaching facility in Wichita. Between 1998 and 2011, Ragan directed KU’s nontraditional Pharm.D. program, a 44 credit-hour program that bridged professionals through the degree upgrade now expected of professional pharmacists. He initially joined the KU faculty as an adjunct instructor of pharmacy practice for the 1997-1998 academic year.
From 2000 to 2013 Ragan was president of Midwest Pharmaceutical Consulting Inc. His professional experience also includes positions at independent, medical center and hospital pharmacies. As a KU graduate student he worked at the Student Health Pharmacy in Watkins Health Center. His graduate student tenure also included positions as a graduate teaching assistant and as a researcher in pharmacology and toxicology. Ragan has published in various journals on topics related to neuronal cell death, drug therapy and pharmacy education research.
He is a member of the North Carolina Association of Pharmacists and served on its board of directors from 2013 to 2017. He is also a member of the American Pharmacists Association, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, the Society for Neuroscience, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and more. His service commitments include work on several committees and organizations at the school, university, community and regional levels. He has been honored as a KU Center for Teaching Excellence award recipient in 2009, and he also received the 2003 PRISM Award from the Greater Kansas City Public Relations Society of America. In 1989, he was selected as the Kansas Pharmacists Association Distinguished Young Pharmacist of the Year.
Ragan has a doctorate and a master’s degree in pharmacology and toxicology from KU. He also earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from KU, and he has an associate’s degree from Butler County Community College. He is a licensed pharmacist in Kansas and North Carolina.
The public presentations of all candidates will be recorded and available for viewing on the dean search website shortly after the final candidate has appeared on campus. Members of the KU community are encouraged to offer their impressions and observation of each candidate online. For greatest consideration, the search committee requests that feedback be submitted by Thursday, May 9; the comment period closes completely on Monday, May 20.
About the School of Pharmacy
With a presence on three KU campuses — Lawrence, Kansas City, and Wichita — the School of Pharmacy offers the only pharmacy program in the state. In 2017, the school received more than $11 million in National Institutes of Health research funding, ranking fourth in the nation for such grants.
Approximately 150 candidates are accepted annually into the Pharm.D. professional degree program after completing two years of pre-pharmacy coursework. The program is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and students in the class of 2018 achieved a first-time pass rate of 100% on the North American Pharmacists Licensure Exam (NAPLEX).