Mercer University The Rho Chi Society Gamma Alpha Chapter 2008 – 2009 Chapter Report
Date of report submission: May 15, 2009 Name of School/College: Mercer University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Chapter name and region: Gamma Alpha Chapter Region III Southeast Delegate who attended the Rho Chi Annual Meeting: Mindy La Date Delegate’s name was submitted to Rho Chi.: December 23, 2008 2008-2009 Chapter officers and e-mail addresses: President: Mindy La (ngoc.my.la@student.mercer.edu) Vice-President: Courtney Mays (courtney.anne.mays@student.mercer.edu) Secretary: Leena Amine (leena.amine@student.mercer.edu) Treasurer: Omotola Oluyide (omotola.oluyide@student.mercer.edu) Historian: Allyson Berg (allyson.m.berg@student.mercer.edu) 2009-2010 Chapter officers and e-mail addresses: President: Amir Khan (amir.ali.khan@student.mercer.edu) Vice-President: Vian Nguyen (vian.kim.nguyen@student.mercer.edu) Secretary: Katie Dahlene (katherine.e.dahlene@student.mercer.edu) Treasurer: Heather Dreissner (heather.d.driessner@student.mercer.edu) Historian: Laura Pier (laura.camille.pier@student.mercer.edu) Chapter advisor’s name and e-mail address: Stanley H Pollock, Ph.D. (pollock_s@mercer.edu) Kathryn M. Momary Pharm.D., BCPS (momary_km@mercer.edu)
Introduction: Mercer University’s Rho Chi Chapter is honored to present this year’s Annual Chapter Report for the 2008-2009 academic year. We have implemented a few new activities and programs to reach out to the student body and involve our chapter members. We have been successful attaining the goals set forth by the Gamma Alpha Chapter officers and members. Meeting Minutes: 1) Aug 22nd, 2008 a) Number in attendance: 12 b) Agenda i) First meeting of the year. ii) Introduced new faculty co-advisor, Dr. Kathryn Momary iii) Planning for second round of initiation from the third year class iv) Discussed fundraising ideas, important events for the semester c) Action items: i) Set up date for initiation: 08/29/08 ii) Farmacy Feud event scheduled for 09/11/08 iii) Second meeting will be 09/19/08 iv) Rho Chi Cookout 09/27/08 v) Financial Planning Seminar 10/06/08 2) September 19th, 2008 Welcome new initiates! a) Number in attendance: 29 b) Agenda i) Welcome new initiates ii) Rho Chi cookout will be in courtyard of on-campus apartments iii) Established committees for events throughout the year iv) Initiation ceremony will be in November: exact date TBA c) Action items: i) Set up exact date for initiation ceremony ii) Attend courtyard cookout iii) Members to sign up for committees: Banquet, fundraising, fashion show, and tutoring 3) November 07th, 2008 a) Number in attendance: 24 b) Agenda i) Recap on Cookout, Financial planning seminar ii) Tutoring program instructions and update iii) Christmas party at Dr. Pollock’s house iv) Fashion show discussion c) Action items i) Sign up for fashion show committee ii) Attend tap-in luncheon iii) Sign up to tutor iv) Back to School Party set up for January 9th, 2009
4) January 16th, 2009 a) Number in attendance: 20 b) Agenda i) Voting in amendment to National bylaws ii) Valentine’s Day Basket fundraiser iii) Fashion Show date set for March 24th iv) Discussion about possible P4 roundtable forum v) Tap-in’s for the second year class on January 28th 2009 c) Action items i) Volunteer to sell raffle tickets for Valentine’s Day basket ii) Sign up to be a fashion show model iii) Plan for P4 roundtable forum iv) Sign up to help tap-in students from second year class 5) February 6th, 2009 a) Number in attendance: 15 b) Agenda i) Valentine’s Day Basket fundraiser coming up ii) Rho Chi Banquet on March 28th,2009; new initiates must attend. Place will be Maggiano’s at Perimeter Mall. iii) Fashion Show on March 24th during lunch hour. Sponsored by Walmart iv) Vote on Faculty of the Year: Dr. Klein won the award by majority of the votes c) Action items i) Sign up to sell raffle tickets ii) Sign up to sell fashion show tickets or to model 6) March 20th, 2009 a) Number in attendance: 21 b) Agenda i) Rho Chi Banquet on March 28th,2009. New initiates must attend. Place will be Maggiano’s at Perimeter Mall. Speaker will be Javier Gonzales. ii) Fashion Show on March 24th during lunch hour. Sponsored by Walmart iii) Bruster’s Coupons book fundraiser: each member should sell three books in April. c) Action items i) Sell fashion show tickets: $3 for one ticket or $5 for two 7) April 13th, 2009 a) Number in attendance: 17 b) Agenda i) Election of new officers for 2009-2010 ii) Bruster’s Coupon book fundraiser: each member should try to sell 3 books by April 20th. iii) College of Pharmacy spring picnic is April 17th. c) Action items: i) Current officers: contact new officers to discuss responsibilities.
Strategic Planning: What goals were set that relate to the Rho Chi mission? Our goals for this 2008-2009 year are as follows: Continue and improve our Tutoring Program Be an active organization on campus by having at least one program per month that is connected to the mission of the organization Encourage chapter member involvement by hosting social events Encourage Rho Chi Faculty involvement in events implemented by the organization
Activities for the year: FALL SEMESTER All semester long: Tutoring Program The tutoring program was set up to benefit not only the students having trouble in their core pharmacy courses, but the Rho Chi chapter as well. This was a great opportunity for the members to give back to the student body, giving up their time to help others in need. The Dean of the College of Pharmacy, Dean Matthews had agreed to pay for tutoring for students who were having a challenging time in their pharmacy courses. We continued this legacy. The tutoring coordinator recruited tutors who volunteered to tutor in a variety of courses for the first, second, and third pharmacy students. Our services were advertised to the student body via email and through the pre-class campus events slide show. Students in needs of help would email the coordinator and fill out an application. The tutoring coordinator would then match the student up with a tutor based on their schedules and availability. At the end of the tutoring session, the student would fill out a tutor evaluation form. The evaluations were tallied up at the end of each semester, and each tutor was given feedback on their performance anonymously. The tutors were paid every 2 weeks. A summary of each semester was written up and dispersed to the faculty advisors, Dean, and Associate Dean of the school. We had a very successful year with the tutoring program. We tutored a total of 349.67 hours. The Rho Chi tutors had a great impact on the pharmacy students. We promoted academic achievement by assisting students to master both study skills and their course material. Note: the Tutoring Program Summaries are attached to this document August: Welcome to Atlanta Party The Welcome to Atlanta Party is an annual event held at Mercer University that is organized by the Council of Students to welcome the first year Pharmacy students to the Mercer community. All school organizations are encouraged to set up a table to promote their organization to new and current students and faculty members. The Gamma Alpha chapter set up a table and handed out information about the Rho Chi Honor Society, advertised the tutoring services offered by the society, and some helpful hints to starting the school year off right. This event has been an ongoing activity for many years.
August: Welcome to Mercer Pamphlet The Pharm D. curriculum is a rigorous program. The Rho Chi Society created a “Welcome to Mercer Pamphlet” for the first year pharmacy students. The pamphlet contained the most frequently asked questions of students regarding study skills, time management, extracurricular activities, etc. The pamphlets were dispersed at the Welcome to Atlanta party at our table. By providing these pamphlets, it provided Rho Chi with an opportunity to promote academic achievement and promote critical inquiries in pharmacy via encouraging participation in extracurricular activities. Note: The Welcome to Mercer pamphlet is attached to this document 2nd Annual Farmacy Feud The 2nd annual “Farmacy Feud Game Show” was held on Thursday, September 11th in the Trustee’s Dining Room from 5-6 PM. Over 60 students and members of faculty came to witness the battle between Mercer Pharmacy faculty and pharmacy students in their second and third year. This year the adviser of the Gamma Alpha Chapter of Rho Chi, Dr. Stanley Pollock, was our host. The “Fabulous Faculty” team consisted of, Dr. Pamela Moye, Dr. James Bartling, Dr. Kathryn Momary, and returning players Dr. Nader Moniri and Dr. Lisa Lundquist. The “Furious Farmacy Fanatics” student team consisted of Mindy La, Melanie Disco, Mike Weinstein, Matt Duff, and Christa Russie. Each member sported team shirts featuring the team name and year. Questions were mostly pharmacy based, but the participants were also challenged with questions in entertainment and sports. The audience was very entertained by the teamwork amongst each “family” and amused by their responses. During intermission, the audience also had the opportunity to win a $25 gift card. In the end, the Rho Chi students decimated the faculty after ten rounds between the two teams. After suffering another damaging defeat, the faculty team is eager to redeem themselves in the next Farmacy Feud. September: 2nd Annual Rho Chi Cookout On September 26th, 2008, Rho Chi Gamma Alpha chapter held a cookout for lunch at the courtyard by the campus apartments. The purpose of the cookout was to foster fellowship among the new and the old members, as well as the Rho Chi faculty members. The members were each asked to bring a dish such as salads, side dishes, desserts, and drinks. The chapter purchased the meats needed for the grilling. One of the members brought a grill to the courtyard picnic. The turnout was great and included all of the new members in addition to 5 faculty members. October: Financial Planning Seminar The Financial Planning Seminar was held on Monday, October 20th at 12:00 noon. Mike Tarrant was gracious enough to be our guest speaker for the event again. Mr. Tarrant serves as the Vice President of Financial Network Associates and has been the featured speaker at several of the Georgia Pharmacy Association’s annual conventions and continuing education events. To encourage participation, a free lunch, sponsored by Publix Pharmacy, was provided to the students. A total of 65 students attended the event. The seminar was also recorded and made available on the school website for those students who had prior engagements and could not
make it to the meeting. The presentation handout was emailed out to the school. This is an important event because as pharmacy students and pharmacists, we not only need to be drug experts, we have to have high standards of conduct and character by being financially responsible. November: Fall New Member Initiation On November 21st, 2008, the Gamma Alpha Chapter held its Fall Initiation in the Trustees Dining Hall at the Atlanta campus. At this event, the new members from the third year class were formally initiated after they were tapped-in previously that semester. Lunch was served buffet-style, and many Rho Chi faculty members were in attendance, among old student members from the chapter. The initiation ceremony was performed by the current Executive officers. After the ceremony, lunch was served to all in attendance. SPRING SEMESTER All semester long: Tutoring Program (please see above) January: Back to School Party The annual Christmas party was pushed back to become our Back to School party. In previous years, the party had a poor turnout due to students leaving to go home for Christmas break. This year we had a good showing of members. The party was held on the Friday before the spring semester started at Dr. Pollock’s home. Everyone signed up to bring a different dish to complement Dr. Pollock’s lasagna. This was a great event to foster fellowship among the members. February: Valentine’s Day Basket Fundraiser Our Valentine’s Day basket fundraiser was held on the week of Feb.9th through Feb. 13th. Chapter members were asked to each donate an item to be included in the basket. The basket raffle tickets were sold throughout the week to students from all classes. Out ticket cost was $2 for one ticket or $5 for three tickets. The basket included items such as two movie tickets, $50 gift certificate to a restaurant, candy, bath salts and candles, and chocolate. The raffle was performed by one of the members and the winner was announced through the email listserv. This was a simple fundraiser that was easy and profitable. February: Fourth-year Student Roundtable Forum This event was organized to fulfill a need that the third year student body expressed. Many students were going through the process of preparing for rotations and had many questions about fourth year experiences. Rho Chi Gamma Alpha Chapter members Leena Amine and Allyson Berg, along with the help of the chapter advisor, Dr. Kathryn Momary, organized this event to answer questions that third years had. We recruited four fourth-year students who were on different rotations at the time, and brought them in for a lunch hour meeting. Before the meeting, Leena Amine and Allyson Berg prepared an agenda of questions that was given to the fourth year students at the meeting. The students were asked to answer the questions in a “discussion” format. Dr. Kathryn Momary, chapter advisor, proctored the session. At the end of the session,
audience members were allowed to ask questions to the fourth-year panel. Afterwards, the students who attended the session said that it was very helpful and helped clarify many matters that were unknown to them. As a matter of fact, the student body president of the third-year class was prompted by this session to contact the Student Affairs Office about financial estimates that many students had not considered or known about. As a result, the student affairs office compiled a helpful guide that was made available to the third year students. We have attached the agenda that was used during the roundtable forum to this report. March: What not to wear to Rotations Fashion Show This event was held on March 24th, 2009. The idea behind the fashion show was to educate rising fourth years about what is appropriate to wear to rotations. The fashion show includes some outfits that are casual, business casual, appropriate but with hidden mishaps such as missing buttons, a white coat that is wrinkled, or the wrong shoes (such as open-toed ladies shoes or worn-out shoes). The “models” for the fashion show were mostly students from the chapter, but also included some faculty members. Emcees for the event were recruited from the third year class. The background music was a compilation put together by a Rho Chi member to be played at the fashion show. Tickets were sold for $3 each, or $5 for two tickets. The event was advertised by sending emails through the listserv, putting flyers around campus, and announcements during class. Lunch for the event was sponsored by Walmart pharmacy. March: Spring New Member Initiation and End of the Year Banquet (please see Initiation Function section) April: Bruster’s Coupon Fundraiser The Bruster’s Fundraiser was held during the month of April. The chapter bought coupon books to sell to raise money for the chapter. The books were distributed to Rho Chi members and each member was asked to try to sell at least three coupon books. Each coupon book was bought for $5, and sold for $10. A total of 50 books were sold through the chapter. All the remaining books were re-sold back to the Bruster’s Company.
Financial/ Budgeting: Please provide information on how your budget was determined and approved in order to support your chapter’s activities. Please include any fund-raising that was conducted to meet this budget. The budget determined by the Gamma Alpha chapter for the 2008-2009 financial year were based on the moneys spent in the previous year. Adjustments were made to each budget and were approved by the chapter advisor and president. The transactions and budget were kept track of using the Microsoft Excel worksheet. At the end of each month, the treasurer also made sure the account statements received from the bank matched with the computer transaction list. Our chapter has been very successful with our budget and has raised sufficient funds to promote service projects, conduct pharmacy-oriented meetings, and to cover expenses for our annual banquet/new member initiation function. The chapter conducted several fundraisers, such as Tutoring in Fall 2008 and Spring 2009, Farmacy Feud, Financial Planning Seminar, Valentine’s Day Basket, Bruster’s Coupon, and the Fashion Show, but the most conducive being tutoring.
The Dean of Mercer College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences provided tutoring reimbursement of $4,800 in the beginning Fall 2008. Our members tutored in modules that students were known to have difficulty in. For every hour a Rho Chi member tutors a student, the chapter received $5 and the member was paid $15. By April of 2009, the chapter had used up all the tutoring hours and was approved for another 120 hours ($2400) as a tutoring reimbursement to meet tutoring expenses for the remaining of this semester. Through tutoring, the chapter was able to raise a total of $2,732.75. The remaining fundraisers brought in a total of $938.00.
Initiation Function: Please describe the initiation function, including when and where the initiation ceremony took place, who attended the function, information on the speaker (if applicable), etc. The spring initiation function is held in conjunction with the end-of-the-year banquet each year. This year’s event was held on Saturday, March 28th in the evening at Maggiano’s, a banquet/dinner facility. All members and Rho Chi Faculty were invited to attend and they could each bring a guest; the chapter paid for everyone’s meal. This year we were honored to have Dean Matthews, Dr. Pollock, Dr. Momary, and Dr. Klein, Faculty Member of the year, in attendance. A three-course meal was served to kick off the event. Following dinner, the guest speaker gave his presentation. Our speaker, Javier Gonzalez, the current Executive VicePresident for ProCare Rx and has been a lead consultant to the managed care industry. Following the speaker, a summary of the year’s activities and budget were reviewed. Special recognition of faculty members and officers were presented as well. The chapter president was presented with an engraved gavel (a chapter ritual). After the presentation, the new member initiation was performed. The new members were invited into the society and each signed the chapter roll book from years past. We had a great turnout to recognize our chapter’s accomplishments this year.
Evaluation/Reflection: Please provide a reflective paragraph that evaluates the effectiveness of your activities and ways to improve. Information that may be included in this section includes number of members participating, number of others involved in the activity (e.g., recipients of outreach), feedback from members and others who were involved in the activities. We had a great year and were able to meet our strategic goals for the year. We have improved and enhanced our tutoring program, including a guide for future Tutoring Coordinators to follow and improve upon. Our social gatherings helped foster fellowship among our members. The events we held on campus reached out to our community and met each mission of the Rho Chi Society. Things we could improve upon next year may be to get more members involved and do more for our community. There are always the select few who do more in the chapter than others, and hopefully next year we can remedy that and get everyone involved equally. Our service outreach is lacking. In the upcoming year, we plan to have joint programs with other on-campus organizations to meet the societies’ mission.
Some chapters have been relatively inactive in past years, but current students/advisors have made great strides to increase the activities/projects of their chapter. Therefore Rho Chi has instituted a new designation for a chapter award – the “Most Improved Chapter Award.” If you would like to be considered for a “Most Improved Chapter Award,” please indicate your significant improvement(s) below.
Other information: If you would like to provide other information about your chapter that was not included in the above categories (e.g., development of a new website, organizing a regional meeting etc.), please add it here: