HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Opening Day is scheduled to come before Fall 2019 in Huntington for the new Marshall University School of Pharmacy.
On Monday morning, Marshall University President Jerome Gilbert joined Marshall School of Medicine Dean Joseph Shapiro, Marshall School of Pharmacy Dean Gayle Brazeau, Signet LLC Chair Anthony Manna and others to break ground on the new site.
Also officially getting started during Monday’s ceremony was planned new graduate student housing for pharmacy and medical students along with resident physicians.
Both projects are located on the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine Fairfield campus which is also home to Cabell-Huntington Hospital.
The project is being funded through a public-private partnership.
“I think is this the next progression for us to be close to Cabell-Huntington Hospital, to the School of Medicine and also to our colleagues on the Marshall campus,” Brazeau said.
Currently, Marshall University’s School of Pharmacy is located next to the Huntington VA Medical Center. The new site is at the intersection of Hal Greer Boulevard and Charleston Avenue near the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine on Marshall’s Fairfield Campus.
Additionally, the new graduate housing project will sit adjacent to the Erma Ora Byrd Clinical Center. Plans call for 200 units of “apartment-style” living.
“It really was a vision to try to bring an opportunity for Pharmacy to be closer now to our colleagues in medicine as well as an opportunity for a living and learning place,” Brazeau said.
A longtime pharmacy educator and former dean at the University of New England College of Pharmacy in Portland, Maine, Brazeau took over as dean of Marshall’s School of Pharmacy in May.
She replaced Dr. Kevin Yingling, the school’s first dean.
“It is a good time for the School of Pharmacy, and I am just excited in the location of this, because it really helps with the renaissance of Huntington, which I’m really pleased that I can now be a part of,” she said.
The Marshall School of Pharmacy is one of three in West Virginia, with pharmacy schools also available at West Virginia University and the University of Charleston.