UPDATE 8/14/12
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) -- A ribbon-cutting ceremony is set for the Marshall University School of Pharmacy.

The ceremony will be held on Tuesday afternoon at the school on the VA Medical Center campus.

Among the scheduled speakers are Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, Marshall President Stephen J. Kopp and pharmacy school dean Kevin W. Yingling.

The pharmacy school welcomes its first class of 80 students this fall.

The deadline to apply was Thursday. The program's first classes are expected to begin in the fall.

Marshall plans to enroll 80 students. Dean Kevin Yingling says the school has accepted 35 so far.

Yingling says the majority of applicants are from West Virginia, southeastern Ohio and Kentucky.

Marshall is seeking national accreditation for the pharmacy school from the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education. Yingling says he expects the council to grant Marshall pre-candidate accreditation status by this summer.

Full-accreditation status would be granted once the first pharmacy class graduates.

Dr. Kevin Yingling, Dean of the School of Pharmacy, Dr. Glenn Anderson, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, and Dr. John Schloss, Chairman of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research, presented the university’s pre-candidate application proposal to the ACPE’s Board of Directors in late January and Marshall was formally notified of the Board’s favorable decision this week. The site visit is scheduled to occur in late spring, according to a news release.

Yingling said this is great news for the School of Pharmacy and the entire region.

“We are continuing to hire faculty, prepare our facilities, develop policies and curriculum, and of course, interview prospective students,” Yingling said.

The comprehensive visit, and subsequently its approval to continue, is the final step in the pre-candidate accreditation process, allowing the School of Pharmacy to begin its classes this fall.

Pre-candidate accreditation status denotes a developmental program, which is expected to mature according to the ACPE’s plans and timetable. The accreditation process also includes two other major phases, candidate accreditation status and full accreditation status, which will culminate with the graduation of the first class.

The school says it has named Dr. H. Glenn Anderson Jr. as associate dean for academic and curricular affairs. Anderson also will serve as a member of the school's Pharmacy Executive Council.

Anderson was the former associate dean of academic affairs at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. He was a founding faculty member of the center, where he began his academic career in 1996 as an assistant professor.

He also has worked as a pharmacist at the Veteran's Affairs Medical Center in Huntington and the Ohio State Medical Center in Columbus.

Anderson received his bachelor's and his doctoral degrees in pharmacy at Ohio State University. He also completed a two-year, post-doctoral fellowship in drug information there.