MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Pharmacy students at the University of Charleston are being offered a unique option to save their course of study amid the loss of the program.
UC recently announced it will wind down its pharmacy program within a year due to a lack of interest. However, the school has worked closely with the West Virginia University School of Pharmacy to provide the students an option to continue working toward their degree.
“It will be as seamless as possible. Everything they’ve passed at U.C. we can give them credit for. Some of them might be electives in our sense, but you have to take so many electives and others will be required courses,” said Dr. Bill Petros, Dean of Pharmacy at WVU.
Petros said the accrediting agency for their department has worked closely with U.C. to evaluate the classes in their course of study. They found both were surprisingly very similar. The transition for those students in their second and third years may not be difficult with course requirements.
Petros added they are still unsure how many of the U.C. students will have to move to Morgantown, but added some of those about to enter clinicals may be able to continue their studies in Charleston.
“Students that would have one more year before getting into their experiential year in pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals, we would likely do from our campus in Charleston right next to CAMC Memorial. We would probably keep them in a cohort down there, but it’s going to depend on how many students are interested in that,” he said.
Those students in their final year at U.C. will get a U.C. degree. The second and third year students along with those recent applicants are the ones who will have decisions to make.
“There’s less than 20 students in each class and they had just a handful of incoming students for next year,” said Petros.
U.C. was forced to drop the program due to a lack of interest from prospective students. Petros said that’s not uncommon as enrollment in pharmacy programs across the country has fallen in recent years, including at WVU. He said therefore they have room to accommodate as many U.C. students as they wish to enroll.
“Nationwide enrollment went down post-pandemic, so we had some open seats there. It’s since picked back up and it’s getting closer to where it was before, but we have some capacity there and certainly enough to handle these students,” Petros said.