About

Dean Wulling

Advance Education

The goal of W-CISPE is to advance education. W-CISPE members will engage in educational initiatives aimed at improving student learning*. Projects will emerge from identified needs and will be directed toward student acquisition of specific knowledge, skills and attitudes. Substantial contributions to pharmacy education will be made by addressing meaningful research questions and utilizing strong instructional design and research design. Projects will be undertaken with the expectation of dissemination of findings that will enhance pharmacy educators’ ability to help students learn.

Supporting and Collaborating

The goal of W-CISPE is to support our individual faculty in producing educational scholarship. W-CISPE activities will provide opportunities for communication regarding our members’ scholarship and innovations. In addition, W-CISPE members will develop active collaborations through the establishment of communities of practice of faculty, staff, and external parties. These communities will support members as they move toward publishing and/or presenting their work at national and international venues. W-CISPE will seek to ensure that education, and the associated research and innovation, remain at the forefront of all college activities, including strategic planning, compact planning, committee work, and development campaigns.

Focused and Deliberate Educational Innovations and Rigorous Research

The expected outcome of W-CISPE is focused, deliberate and systematic innovation followed by rigorous evaluative research. To this end, W-CISPE will be guided by a strategic plan developed by its membership. Strategic initiatives may include fundraising to support innovation and scholarship, such as visiting scholars.

* Students may include pharmacy students, pharmacy residents, graduate students, fellows, pharmacists, and others learning pharmacy related topics.

Dean Wulling 1866-1947

Frederick J. Wulling was the first Dean, and for many years the primary instructor, of the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy. Wulling worked tirelessly to educate both himself and others. Before entering Pharmacy, he trained in business and medicine. During his tenure as Dean, he completed a law degree. Though he’d already held faculty positions at two Colleges of Pharmacy (New York College of Pharmacy and Brooklyn College of Pharmacy) before arriving in Minnesota, Wulling was only 25 when he assumed the deanship.

Wulling faced a remarkable set of challenges during his 44 year term. He personally paid for and cultivated an educational medicinal plant garden in his back yard when there were no funds to establish one. He regularly lobbied for sufficient money, space, equipment, and faculty time. He twice submitted his resignation (in 1893 and 1909) because the College had not received adequate attention from the University and the Board of Regents. He spent his spare time personally building support for the College of Pharmacy among Minnesota pharmacists.

By the time Wulling retired in 1936, pharmacy education in Minnesota had gone from a two year optional program taught in other departments’ spare space to a required Bachelor’s degree housed in—where else?—Wulling Hall.