Spring 2016

At College of Pharmacy, I’m continually struck by the number of opportunities for collaboration that present themselves on a daily basis, from clinical partnerships, to joint research programs, to economic development ventures. There are many great ideas. Our challenge is to focus on those ideas where we can have the most impact, where we can make a difference congruent with our College mission and strategic plan.

As Steve Jobs once noted, “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.” And then, focus on successfully addressing this opportunity.

Over the next few editions of this newsletter, we will be sharing numerous initiatives that the College and University are pursuing to make a difference for the benefit of our faculty, staff, and students—and ultimately for the patients we serve. Our first involves the recent hire of the founding Director of the George and Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience [GARIN]. Dr. Paula Grammas joined the College of Pharmacy as Institute Director and Thomas M. Ryan Professor of Neuroscience.  She was formerly the director of the Garrison Institute on Aging at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.

The opportunity to address the scourge of neurodegenerative disease through GARIN was made possible by the leadership, vision and generosity of Tom ’75 and Cathy Ryan. This interdisciplinary, University-wide Institute is now the focus of our research and outreach efforts in this area, and has set it sights on recognition as a world-class institution.

I am also pleased to introduce in this edition of the newsletter a unique collaboration between College of Pharmacy and the Department of Political Science, and to highlight some of the outstanding work being done by our faculty, students, and alumni.

We are all trying to “think big” and make a difference.

E. Paul Larrat, Ph.D.
Dean and Professor

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