Purdue Global, West Lafayette partner on new programs to meet market needs

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Purdue University Global Board of Trustees on Friday (June 14) approved the creation of two new programs in partnership with the College of Pharmacy and the Purdue Polytechnic Institute on the Purdue West Lafayette campus.

Beginning fall 2019, Purdue Global will offer a pharmacy technician certificate in health care quality and patient safety, and associate and bachelor’s degrees in professional flight.

The pharmacy technician certification, a first-of-its-kind offering, will offer pharmacy partners the ability to provide advanced education to their pharmacy technicians, including those at the entry level.

Purdue Global will offer the certificate program in both standard and accelerated competency-based ExcelTrack formats, and various pharmacy partners will be able to customize the curriculum to suit their specific needs. The program will ultimately allow a technician to meet the accreditation guidelines for advanced pharmacy technician credentials recently approved by the American Council on Pharmacy Education. 

Already, four potential community pharmacy partners have expressed interest in working with Purdue Global to offer this advanced education.

Addressing the projected global demand for aviation professionals over the next 20 years, the new professional flight programs will include general education and open electives from the current inventory of Purdue Global courses, and students will earn academic credit for flight credentials obtained through affiliate flight schools. The Polytechnic Institute’s School of Aviation and Transportation Technology will lend its expertise in curriculum development, faculty hiring, affiliate flight school selection and accreditation by the Aviation Accreditation Board International.

“Both of these new offerings are stellar examples of how Purdue Global and Purdue West Lafayette can work together to create programs that meet the needs of employers and students while leveraging both institutions’ subject matter expertise,” Purdue Global Chancellor Betty Vandenbosch said.

Both are subject to approval by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, which will be requested immediately. 

Sources: Betty Vandenbosch, bvandenbosch@purdueglobal.edu

Eric Barker, barkerel@purdue.edu

Gary Bertoline, bertoline@purdue.edu