July 19, 2023
Since starting her role at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy in 2022, Ilona Owens, has built a strong foundation in the Office of Student Affairs (OSA). She began as the director of OSA and has now been promoted to senior director.
Owens received her bachelor’s degree from Elon University. She continued her education at East Carolina University and graduated with a master’s in clinical psychology. “What I found is that even though psychology was really interesting to study, I was actually drawn to working in higher education and didn’t want to leave the university environment,” Owens said.
She began her career at Greensboro College for 13 years in their student affairs office—working her way up to Dean of Students. Owens then moved on to Alamance Community College for eight years before arriving at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
“Everyone has been so welcoming, energetic and ready to do good things. I see student affairs as an opportunity to support students and their journey through our program—that can be anything from enrollment to graduation,” she said.
Student affairs fosters student growth through coaching, mentoring, career development, professional development, co-curricular engagement, and experiential education programs and activities. This support beyond the classroom aims to maximize both student growth and leadership development by offering grounded and intentional services, opportunities and experiences.
“Ilona has brought a wealth of experience with her to our School community. Under her leadership the Office of Student Affairs has improved and developed new services to support our students across our graduate and professional programs,” said Scott Savage ‘98, ‘02, Pharm.D., executive vice dean and chief operating officer at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and chief financial officer for the Eshelman Institute for Innovation.
OSA aims to partner with faculty to understand what students need in order to be successful in the classroom. After building stability in OSA over the last year, Owens plans to continue to build on that momentum and to develop systems to further support students as they go through the School’s rigorous program. She hopes OSA will help students realize the resiliency they bring and the community they are building while in pharmacy school.
“The students here are amazing. When I look at the curriculum, research and engagement of our professional and graduate students—the work they are doing is phenomenal. I just marvel at what they are doing, and they are a huge reason why I enjoy my job,” Owens said.
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