December 13, 2006

Butler Receives $25 Million Gift From The Lilly Endowment

This month's President's Perspective is a day late, but not a dollar short.

Today we received a $25 million gift from the Lilly Endowment to fund the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Expansion Project. This gift is the largest in Butler University's history.

Let me tell you what we have planned for the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Expansion Project. First and foremost, the expansion project is centered around public health and wellness. Pharmacists today are much more than the dispensers of medications. Their role has expanded to one that promotes wellness, educates patients and assumes responsibility for the optimal uses of medications. Pharmacy programs across the country are being challenged to broaden their focus to include public health, with the proactive goal of protecting and improving health.

Over the past few years, the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences has begun to build a reputation among pharmacy programs for its wellness initiatives. We hired new faculty for whom wellness issues are a primary research focus. In 2004, the university also launched the award-winning Healthy Horizons, a program that promotes health literacy and wellness for all Butler employees.

Through this gift, we can expand these programs and infuse wellness and public health concerns in both classroom and experiential education.

We will construct a Health Education Center to educate student pharmacists about the principles of health promotion and disease prevention.

We will provide our students with opportunities to work with the medically underserved. Through one program students will spend a minimum of four weeks practicing at a rotation site that will enable them to personally experience the impact of public policy, socioeconomic status and cultural and ethnic diversity on health care options available in underserved communities.

We will develop community-based post-doctoral pharmacy residency programs that focus on public health, offer opportunities for faculty development and provide the necessary start-up funds and equipment for research in the areas of public health.

With this $25 million gift, we have raised $103 million toward the $125 million goal of our ButlerRising human capital campaign. And we still have three years to raise the remainder of the money. I want to thank everyone who has contributed time and energy to the successful Lilly grant and to ButlerRising.