DENVER (Nov. 15, 2006) – Louis Diamond, PhD, dean of the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center School of Pharmacy, announced today that the school will receive a $10 million gift from The ALSAM Foundation, a Utah Trust, to assist with the construction of a new, 105,000 sq. ft. building to be located on the Fitzsimons campus of the UCDHSC.
The School of Pharmacy is one of the top-ranked pharmacy schools in the nation and is committed to excellence in pharmaceutical education, research and patient care. The school consistently ranks at or near the top of the nearly 100 schools of pharmacy in the United States in terms of National Institutes of Health research grants per faculty member and has been widely acclaimed as having one of the country’s most diverse pharmacy student bodies.
The ALSAM Foundation gift is the largest ever to the School of Pharmacy and one of the most substantial ever to the Health Sciences Center. To honor and memorialize the Skaggs family, the school will be renamed the “Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.” Mr. L.S. Skaggs and his family are nationally recognized as pioneers in the retail drug and grocery business and as generous philanthropists. In appreciation of their earlier financial support, the current pharmacy building at Eighth Ave. and Colorado Blvd. in Denver is named for the Skaggs family. The University of Colorado awarded Mr. L.S. Skaggs a Doctor of Science Degree, Honoris Causa, in 1992.
“All of us at CU are excited about what a new building for the School of Pharmacy will mean to health care, not only in Colorado but throughout the nation,” said Hank Brown, University of Colorado president. “We are especially pleased that successive generations of students will pass through the doors of our pharmacy school to perpetuate the Skaggs family legacy of promoting public health and well-being. The long-standing and generous commitment of the Skaggs family to diversity has helped raise the socioeconomic status of countless scores of the school’s minority graduates and, perhaps even more importantly, has prepared them to serve as role models, mentors and involved citizens in their home communities. For this and so much more, we are immensely grateful to the Skaggs family.”
UCDHSC Chancellor M. Roy Wilson, MD, MS, said: “The announcement of this generous and visionary gift is a breakthrough moment for the new, world-class Health Sciences Center campus. As a lead gift, it will leverage the investment in health science education made by the State of Colorado and at the same time help our School of Pharmacy sustain its outstanding reputation as a national leader in pharmaceutical education and research. With this major gift from the Skaggs family, the Fitzsimons campus is poised to undertake a collaborative, cross-disciplinary agenda of the greatest importance to the university’s and to the State of Colorado’s future.”
Ronny L. Cutshall, president of the Salt Lake City-based Foundation, said: “The Grants Committee of The ALSAM Foundation is delighted to once again support the School of Pharmacy. The Skaggs family and The ALSAM Foundation have closely followed the school’s progress over the years and have been most favorably impressed with how our previous investments have been used to remarkably increase diversity in the student body and to enhance the school’s educational programs, research productivity and national stature.”
Dean Diamond, whose relationship with the Skaggs family and The ALSAM Foundation spans a period of more than 20 years, said: “This magnanimous gift is yet another example of how this extraordinary family has, again and again, given back to the organizations that share their humanitarian values and to the institutions whose good work has helped nurture their various business enterprises. We are deeply indebted to the members of the Skaggs family for all they have done to support and advance our academic mission and we are extremely proud to have our school named in their honor.”
The new pharmacy building will house state-of-the-art research laboratories; conference and seminar rooms; small classrooms; offices for faculty, staff and administrative personnel, and support spaces for student services, postgraduate professional education and experiential programs. Program plan approvals from the University of Colorado’s Board of Regents and the Colorado Commission on Higher Education are expected by March 2007, with construction beginning in July 2008 and occupancy scheduled for July 2010.
The UCDHSC School of Pharmacy was established in Boulder in 1911 with one faculty member and two students. Construction began on the Skaggs Pharmacy Building in Denver in 1990 and the first classes were held in the new building in August of 1992. Today, the school’s faculty numbers more than 60 and the student body has grown to nearly 600.
The University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center is one of three universities in the University of Colorado system. Located in Denver and Aurora, Colo., the center includes schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and dentistry, a graduate school and a teaching hospital. For more information, visit the Web site at www.uchsc.edu or the UCDHSC Newsroom at http://www.uchsc.edu/news.