Sacramento-Area Pharmacy College Gets its Accreditation

A for-profit pharmacy school in Rancho Cordova that may move to Elk Grove next year has earned full accreditation. 

The California Northstate University College of Pharmacy sought accreditation last year, but was kept at "candidate" status while changes were made to policies and communication between departments, Dean Shane Desselle said.

He said accreditation allows the school's graduates to sit for pharmacy licensing exams.

"Most programs do get accredited, if started by 'old school universities,' " Desselle said. "This is just a pharmacy school that just started a few years ago. It's a lot more difficult for us than UCLA or [another established university] to start a pharmacy school."

The school's first commencement was held last year; Desselle has been dean for a year.

The school also earned praise from the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education for its assessment of student learning and inter-professional learning, where its pharmaceutical students work with nursing students from Sacramento State. Those programs were named as "national best practices."

"There is a push to have experiences where students in these programs are together," Desselle said. "If they learn things completely in a vacuum and don't understand each others' roles when they get out, it causes gaps in the delivery of healthcare itself."

Desselle said the school is also unique because its classes are "flipped classrooms." Students do the majority of assignments and reading at home, then come to the school to take exams and talk about what they've been learning.

"We don't have lecture halls," Desselle said. "Our students sit around tables and have discussions."

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