On Tuesday, September 8th, 2020, the venerable St. Louis College of Pharmacy formally changed their name for the third time in their history. Responses have been varied, including praises, concerned inquiries, jokes, and outright insults. For alumni and students, it is no surprise that such a decision was met with such an emotional and mixed reception. For them, St. Louis College of Pharmacy was the place they spent five to seven years of the primes of their lives and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend.
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How did We Get Here?
I attended the college from 2008 until I graduated with my Pharm.D. in 2014. I remember, when I was still in high school trying to decide where I would spend my late teens and early twenties, I toured a few of my top options for my higher education. When I set foot on the campus of St. Louis College of Pharmacy (STLCOP), I was immediately enamored with the small and quaint campus, with the Gateway arch and the silhouette of downtown St. Louis providing the perfect eastern backdrop. The lush green oasis of the Quad served as an island of respite from the city sounds and busy streets. The ivy crept up the red brick walls of Jones Hall, which sat defiantly in the shadow of the Barnes Hospital and Washington University Medical School. Across Kingshighway was the idyllic Forest Park, with miles of unexplored trails and amenities. To the north, blocks of walkable street were lined with historic St. Louis low-rise apartments with beautiful red-brick facades and alive with dozens of restaurants, shops, and bars.
From the outside, the college seemed perfect. It wasn’t until a about halfway through my first semester at the College that the rot inside started to reveal itself. Some of this became evident as I spent more time in the aging and undersized student center and lecture halls, but most importantly, and more insidious, was the decaying culture of the faculty, administration, and student body.
The Problem Revealed
Looking back, I am still struck by the negativity and toxicity which seemed to permeate much of the student body. Especially when under stress of an exam or other big assignment, students would feed of off each other’s negative thoughts and feelings. This is not to say that every student felt or acted this way, and some utilized the energy in productive ways while others sought only to spread their darkness. STLCOP was a unique place when I attended because it was almost like a continuation of high school. Every student took mostly the same classes, at the same time, with the same test schedules and the same advancement requirements. This shared experience bonded the students together in way that is not possible at other institutes, creating the perfect breeding ground for this enduring negativity.
The faculty and administration were not without their own faults. Culture starts at the top of any organization, and to this day I believe STLCOP continues to need improvement in this area. The College has a history of a perception of nonresponsiveness to student’s needs and concerns, sometimes justified and sometimes not. Rules about parking, class registration, uses of technology and electronic devices, disciplinary actions, and more were often implemented suddenly and seemingly arbitrarily. Student empowerment was at a minimum, as much too often we were severely restricted or highly supervised on projects and extracurricular activities.
In addition, the faculty demonstrated an animosity and suspicion towards the students. Every test or quiz day was preceded by a lecture about academic dishonestly. The steps that were taken to prevent cheating were often extremely cumbersome for students to deal with and made everyone feel as though we were already criminals. After I graduated and became a college instructor myself, I learned that these actions often have the effect of making cheating MORE common. See, most students are honest and do not have the desire to cheat. However, by emphasizing rules about academic dishonesty and constantly showing suspicion and even baseless accusations, it gives the students the impression that “everyone is cheating except me.” This will then drive more students to cheat because they feel almost like they are expected to. Instead of preventing academic dishonesty, these actions probably made it worse and highly damaged the relationship between students and faculty.
While negativity and dissatisfaction were widespread throughout the student body, not all students responded to these feelings in the same way. Instead of spreading rumors or making bad jokes, some students tried to enact changes. I was one of those students. I was often intensely dissatisfied with my school, but I also believed it had the potential to be so much more. I was a class officer and a member of the student government. I participated on several faculty committees as the student representative and even worked on the beginnings of the new 7-year curriculum. I wrote letters, conducted surveys, lead focus groups, and tried to be a positive example for my classmates. Looking back on my Facebook status history will prove I was not always successful at the latter.
Hope?
For me, things really began to change when Dr. John Pieper took over as President at the college. The strategic plan, “STLCOP 2020,” laid out a vision of transformation for the college, physically, culturally, and academically. While not perfect, I was confident that if implemented, STLCOP 2020 would address some of the most pressing issues at my school. On my last days of rotation in 2014, I watched with pride as excavators systematically demolished the dilapidated student center. Though I would never get to enjoy it as a student, the building that would replace it was the first step in addressing many of the issues with overcrowding in lecture halls and the lack of study and meeting spaces. Across Parkview Place, a new residence hall and student center would be constructed in the coming years. I graduated with feelings of hope and pride for the path my school was taking.
One of the recurring tropes of toxicity that kept cropping up over my years at STLCOP was the notion of never donating to the College as an alumnus. There were certainly points in my career that I felt this myself, and if the college had continued on its pre-Pieper path, I almost certainly would have maintained that attitude after graduation. But, I didn’t. My wife and I became proud donors to the college. We both received scholarships from the endowment fund during our years there, so we both felt a responsibility to reach out a hand to help the next generation make it up the ladder. Nevertheless, I still know dozens, maybe even into the hundreds of my acquaintances who throw away every correspondence from the College, and would sooner die and go to hell than give one more cent to STLCOP. Some of these people are my dearest friends.
Difficult Times
The College, like the profession of pharmacy in general, has faced its own set of challenges since my graduation. When I entered pharmacy school, there was a severe pharmacist shortage. Becoming a pharmacist would provide job security in a fulfilling career in healthcare. Pharmacies were scrambling for workers; salaries were increasing yearly and some pharmacists were even offered signing bonuses or tuition assistance programs. Today, the landscape is much different. Between 2005 and 2016, between four and five new pharmacy schools opened each year. The supply of new pharmacists has started to outpace the demand, especially in areas like St. Louis which now has two places at which to get a Pharm.D. This has created a serious problem for St. Louis College of Pharmacy.
The campus revitalization and strategic plan came at a significant cost. STLCOP is an independent school, so it does not have the resources of Washington University or St. Louis University. It was a bold and risky decision. Now that they have started down that path, they cannot afford to see their enrollment numbers decline due to the oversupply of pharmacists. From my perspective, they were faced with a difficult decision: Do nothing and wait for the endowment to run dry before finally closing or expand into areas and degrees outside of the traditional scope of the college.
Addressing the Change
This long tangent serves to set the context for the change that STLCOP made this week, which has shone a light on the persistent toxicity of some students and alumni. Though the College has changed its name in the past (it was once called St. Louis College of Pharmacy and Allied Health), this does feel quite a bit different, as the new name is much more generic and far less iconic than the traditional name. The name, “University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis”, as it is now known, is long, cumbersome, and uninspiring. Clear even from the official acronym, “UHSP,” the St. Louis identity is merely an afterthought. The University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy could be in any city. It could be just another new pharmacy school entering an already overcrowded field. It has no deeper meaning or connection to the institution’s past.
With that said, one thing the name does well is embody the direction the University has been headed since Dr. Pieper first unveiled his STLCOP 2020 plan. St. Louis College of Pharmacy was already gone in 2014, whether people realized it or not. A new institution was being built, out of a vision for improvement as well as necessity. Several new graduate and undergraduate degree programs are being offered with plans to add more going forward. This will enable UHSP to continue to be able to provide high-quality education to a smaller number of Pharm.D. candidates while expanding their influence and continuing to pay their bills.
While it is no-doubt upsetting to hear that the name of one’s alma mater has changed, this is not an uncommon practice. Literally hundreds of colleges and universities have changed their names since the 1990s, with one of the most common changes being colleges “upgrading” to universities. Other schools have changed their name to better reflect their identity. Consider the local Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T or S&T), which changed its name from the University of Missouri-Rolla in 2008. The former name makes it sound like just another satellite of the larger MU system, which, in reality, is one of the best engineering schools in the country. The new name better reflects the mission of the university and better separates it from its competition. As a result, S&T’s enrollment has increased since the change.
Comparing Missouri S&T’s name change to STLCOP’s highlights both what was done well and what was not. Like S&T, UHSP’s new name better signals what the university has become. Unlike S&T, the new acronym is not catchy or easy to say, and the extended name does not connect the University to its past or separate it from other universities.
Also worth considering is the University’s new logo. Here I think they did a great job. The colors of purple and gray evoke images of the old STLCOP logo, which was hallmarked by the silhouette of a mortar and pestle in front of the Gateway Arch which so prominently defines the campus. Along those same lines, the new symbol is a true work of art. It is simple, a purple arch threaded by a gray U. However, the way that it is laid out resembles a section of the famous DNA double-helix, upon which much research was conducted during the Human Genome Project just across the street. What better to represent health sciences than a DNA segment? The constituent parts of the logo can also be read simultaneously as a U for university. Coupled with the purple arch that is like the STLCOP arch, it gives the impression for those familiar of “the University of STLCOP”. Clearly, the new symbol achieves its purposes without being overly complex or unattractive.
This brings me back to what originally motivated me to write about this subject. After the announcement, the initial Facebook post became inundated with students and alumni making bad jokes, overly-dramatic criticisms, and downright toxic statements. Here are a few that were particularly striking.
- And there goes all the future alumni donations
- Pharmacy was added in the name as if it was an afterthought. Absolutely devastating to your current student body, who chose to come to STLCOP
- I can not believe that our 150 year legacy ends like this! How disappointing to all of the alumni of the college. Unfortunately I will no longer be considering any funding to the new generic university. I am quite sure many alumni feel this way after hearing this news. Maybe you should have consider hearing opinions from previous graduates.
- Horrible. I’m embarrassed. Our profession is in crisis and now this—just another slap in the face. All about the $$$. Get those students in and churn them out.
- R.I.P. STLCOP! It took the current administration a few years, but they were finally able to destroy the 150 year legacy of the college. Just glad they actually decided to include the word pharmacy in the name (seemingly as an afterthought).
- I just wonder what Dr. Haberle and Dr. Naeger are saying now? I assume the statue of Dr.Naeger will be removed as well… our 150 year legacy changed and no consideration of all the alumni that have funded the development of the new campus! We wanted STLCOP to continue as a distinguished College of Pharmacy… not some generic university with pharmacy in the name as an afterthought!
- I do hope all previous Alumni refuse to donate for it is no longer our College.
- What an embarrassment; absolute garbage decision
See the full post here
Sprinkled in among the comments are some valid criticisms, some of which we have already discussed here. However, there’s also some frankly ridiculous ideas. STLCOP has not “gone away.” The division of UHSP which administers the pharmacy program is still called “St. Louis College of Pharmacy”. The faculty and facilities are the same. It’s an absolute overreaction to say that the entire “legacy” of the school has been thrown away.
In addition, some of the people who “are no longer considering funding the college,” are some of the ones I mentioned before who would rather die than donate, even prior to this decision. One person who I went to school with had the nerve to describe it as “an iconic college” in his comments, pretending as though he had love for it beforehand.
Another thing that this string of comments highlights is again the persistent problem of disempowering students and alumni. Though they did conduct small scale focus groups and surveys, for a community this large, it was not enough. In retrospect, the leadership of the college should have conducted a very public “name search” campaign over the course of a year to get widespread stakeholder involvement. This would have given people time to give input and come to terms with the idea of the College changing its name before springing it on them in dramatic fashion over a livestream during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Alumni, STLCOP/UHSP is not the same school you attended, but that was just as true on September 7th as it was on the 8th. Not only that, but we should all be thankful it isn’t! The STLCOP we attended gave educator of the year awards to verbally abusive and ineffective professors. It thought small and was not responsive to student needs. It was mostly unknown except to other Alumni (how many times did you have to tell someone that you’re not going to school to be a police officer and no it is not a part of St. Louis University). It was desperately in need of change.
We pretend like our college was prestigious when it did next to no research, did not have the highest NAPLEX pass rate in the country, nor the highest residency match rate. If we’re being honest with ourselves, STLCOP was slightly above average at best. UHSP has the chance to shake that bad reputation, to leave behind the hordes of alumni who curse the name “STLCOP,” and forge a new, brighter, more productive path forward.
There is no doubt that many alumni will be alienated by this decision. I admit that it makes me a little sad myself. But this decision does not erase the College’s history. It was still founded in 1864 in downtown St. Louis before moving into Jones hall after the turn of the century. Its name was changed to St. Louis College of Pharmacy and Allied Health, before being changed back again. It continues to graduate highly trained pharmacists. There is nothing wrong with a little nostalgia, but we must be careful not to fall prey to rosy retrospection (the nostalgic fallacy). Though never explicit, this week’s dramatic change has been hinted and foreshadowed since the first STLCOP 2020 poster was hung on campus nearly 10 years ago.
UHSP leadership made plenty of mistakes with this decision. They knew they would be unable to please everyone. But remember the alternative. It’s very likely that STLCOP would be facing closure if they had not made these changes. First and foremost, the College has a responsibility to his history, alumni, students, and faculty to keep the doors open and the bagpipes singing every May. It took courage, vision, and hard work to make this change. I, for one, am proud of my institution for trying to move forward, rather than sit still and die. For now, I’ll gladly keep my monthly donation to UHSP, and I hope you will too.
I have no doubt many of you will have something of your own to say about this! Please share in the comments below. If you’d like to read more, follow and share the blog or find me on Facebook or Twitter.
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