Campbell University’s College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences (CPHS) celebrated its 27th commencement exercise at the John W. Pope, Jr. Convocation Center on Friday, May 13, 2016. Joseph Moose, PharmD ’90, clinical pharmacist and co-owner of Moose Pharmacy, delivered the commencement address.
“If each of you touches six patients/clients/students a day for a 30-year career, you will impact 9.3 million people,” shared Moose at the beginning of his address. “That is the population of North Carolina.”
A member of the charter class of pharmacy graduates from Campbell, Moose shared a unique message with the Class of 2016. His topic of choice was failure.
“Most of the graduation talks that will be happening over this weekend around the country will all be centered around ‘success’,” he said. “I’m here to tell you failure shapes your life more than success.”
He shared a story of an undergraduate professor suggesting he was not cut out to be a pharmacist then meeting that same professor nine years later in a nursing home after he caught an error in the professor’s father’s medical chart. He also shared a story of attempting to implement an innovative hospital readmission prevention program in his pharmacy and having to readjust multiple times before seeing success. He then urged the class to look at failure as feedback and to respond to that feedback by trying to correct the failure and make it better.
“Fail forward with each attempt, iteration after iteration to make something better. Failing forward might be called innovation.”
The ceremony also recognized 17 individuals who earned Senior Awards, 9 students who earned lipid management certificates, 48 students who earned APhA diabetes certificates, and 23 students who were inducted into the Rho Chi Honor Society. Also, the entire PharmD Class of 2016 completed the requirement for the immunizations certificate program.
The CPHS Class of 2016 is comprised of 191 graduates who were awarded undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees. A total of 196 degrees were conferred during the ceremony, including: 105 doctor of pharmacy degrees, 5 master of science in clinical research degrees, 13 master of science in pharmaceutical sciences degrees, 11 master of science in public health degrees, 27 bachelor of science in clinical research degrees, 16 bachelor of science in pharmaceutical sciences degrees, and 14 bachelor of science in general science degrees. Twenty graduates earned multiple degrees from Campbell University simultaneously throughout their academic careers, including degrees from Campbell’s Norman A. Wiggins School of Law and Lundy-Fetterman School of Business.