Center of Excellence has recieved 3.43 million in grant funding from HRSA

The Howard University College of Pharmacy’s Center of Excellence has received confirmation that we have been renewed by HRSA for the next 5 years (2022-2027) in the amount of 3.43 million over the next 5 years. Under Dr. Awuonda’s principal investigatorship and directorship, the new purpose of the grant will be to leverage our newly strengthened consortium of strategic regional partners including the University of the District of Columbia (UDC); other HBCU’s in our BS/PharmD programs; committed high school partners with a pharmacy technician or STEM focus to further expand the College of Pharmacy’s and the University’s long standing institutional commitment to diversity. This purpose will be achieved via focused programs geared to advance underrepresented minority (URM) students and URM faculty within the profession of pharmacy (primarily) and other health professions (secondarily).  

New efforts in the renewed COE grant are a re-commitment to community-based student health training via newly proposed additional clerkship site partnerships with 1) Federally Qualified Health Centers, 2) Community healthcare partners focused on health and housing  3) Community-based healthcare partners focused on behavioral health. The grant also will focus on updated student performance programs to support NAPLEX performance, advancing our training in health information technology and digital health for our pharmacy students and faculty. New programming for faculty will include expansion of the faculty-student research (FSR) program and a new Early Faculty Diversity Initiative for pharmacy post-grads to support a pipeline of URM pharmacy faculty. The 7 legislative objectives anticipated to be fulfilled remain the same and include 1) Competitive Applicant Pool 2) Student Performance 3) Student Health Training 4) Curriculum Information/Cultural Competency 5) Faculty Development 6) Faculty Student Research and 7) Provision of Stipends.