The General Alumni Association at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill honored Bob Blouin, Pharm.D., dean of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, with the GAA’s 2016 Faculty Service Award.
The award was established in 1990 and honors those who have performed outstanding service for the University or the GAA. Blouin, along with Joy Kasson, a professor of American Studies and English, were selected as the 2016 recipients. Blouin is the Vaughn and Nancy Bryson Distinguished Professor and director of the School’s Eshelman Institute for Innovation,
Blouin joined the School as dean in 2003 after 25 years at the University of Kentucky as an assistant professor, associate dean of research and graduate education and director of entrepreneurship and economic development. When he joined the School, it ranked 27th among the nation’s pharmacy schools in research funding from the National Institutes of Health; now it is second. The Doctor of Pharmacy program is ranked second by U.S. News & World Report. Up from seventh.
Blouin has made significant contributions to the School and continues to be recognized for his dedication to the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received the North Carolina Association of Pharmacists’ 2015 Don Blanton Award, which recognizes the pharmacist who has contributed most to the advancement of pharmacy in North Carolina during the past year.
The School’s Eshelman Institute for Innovation, launched with an unprecedented $100 million gift in 2014 from Fred Eshelman, Pharm.D., aims to accelerate change in education, research and health care by fostering collaboration, creativity and innovation and stimulating entrepreneurial development. Blouin is the institute’s director.
Blouin cofounded the PharmAlliance partnership between the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy; the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia; and the University College London School of Pharmacy in the United Kingdom. He led the re-engineering of the Pharm.D. curriculum at the School, which launched in the fall of 2015.
“I started off at UNC with the belief we could be a school that could do extraordinary things,” Blouin said. “Why aim low? Why not create something really special here? It was with that spirit that I took this job, and I have never looked back.”