When James Halpert became dean of the UConn School of Pharmacy in 2014, he found that his administrative role kept him from the kind of personal contact with students that he had enjoyed as associate dean and department chair at other universities. He was therefore delighted when two Pharm.D. students, Elliott Bosco ’17 and Sarah Kessler ’17, approached him with some ideas about how to bring student concerns to him in a mutually beneficial way.

That’s when the idea of creating the Dean’s Student Liaison Committee was conceived. “I thought, why not give students an opportunity to sit down with me on a regular basis to talk about the things both inside and outside the classroom that are important to them,” Halpert says, “and the result has been equally positive for everyone.”

The committee’s goals include keeping the dean and their fellow students aware of current events within the School of Pharmacy, developing solutions for unexpected or difficult events that may arise during the semester, and working together to achieve common goals. All this while advancing the reputation of the School of Pharmacy on both a local and national level.

The committee is comprised of six students, two each from the P1, P2, and P3 years. The application process includes answering a few short questions about why a person is interested in joining the group and providing a resume to current committee members, who then vote on the candidates. Those whose applications are accepted during their first year have the option of staying on the committee for three years. Any vacant positions are filled on an ‘as needed’ basis.

Current members are Aileen Yum-Chan, P1 and Ethan Wang, P1; Heather Honor, P2  (Chair) and Kamilla Borsai, P2; and Michael Vessicchio, P3 (Treasurer) and Sayali Oak, P3, (Secretary).

According to Honor, the committee has been a great way for her to get more involved with the School of Pharmacy. She says, “I have enjoyed the time I have been involved. This committee does a lot of work to help maintain good faculty and student relationships. It has brought iClickers, more interaction between students and faculty during classes, and has even begun finding ways to help out transfer students.”

The list of the group’s achievements is long and includes some things that may at first glance seem inconsequential but are nevertheless important to students, and other things that will have a lasting impact on future classes.

Current treasurer Michael Vessicchio says, “This committee was the first organization I joined at the School of Pharmacy and it helped me get to know many of the faculty as well as my fellow students. We help in any way possible, from small things like making sure we have tissues and cutlery in the student kitchen, to much larger goals related to increasing communication between students and faculty.”

Some of the more far-reaching achievements include working with transfer students to improve their application and integration process, communicating improvements to ExamSoft assessment software to students, and facilitating Town Hall meetings that establish a safe and comfortable environment for students and faculty to voice their opinions.

PGY1 Sarah Warack, who is a resident at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, has a graduate’s impression of the Dean’s Student Liaison Committee based on her experiences as the committee’s first Chair.  “From the beginning, “she says, “we met weekly without the dean and we discussed what we thought were important issues from the student perspective.

We would then meet with Dean Halpert. He was great about letting us set the agenda so that we could bring up issues that had previously gone unresolved.  When we met with him, he gave us his perspective and he figured out solutions that either he could implement or he would tell us whom to contact within the administration. One of the best things about the committee is that it gave us the autonomy to bring up issues that were really important to us whenever they occurred.”

As pharmacists, whether in community, academic, hospital, or industry settings, one of the things that sets UConn School of Pharmacy graduates apart is their leadership ability.  The Dean’s Student Liaison Committee helps hone that skill.

Halpert says, “I really enjoy interacting with students and while our primary mission is to give them the best possible pharmacy education, we also have a responsibility to help them grow as leaders. We want them to take ownership of their careers and their place in the larger community. If being a member of this Committee helps do that, I think we’ve achieved our mission.”

He adds, “This has been a terrific experience for me personally, because it helps me to understand how today’s students think. We hear so much about polarization in our country, based on politics, age, ethnicity, and geography. In that context I have found it incredibly gratifying to discover that a baby boomer and millennials can find common ground.”

Students who wish to make a suggestion to the group can submit their thoughts and requests via the following link: https://goo.gl/forms/J1CIfNlhFMeJA3hE2