Our Timeline

The Lyle S. Hallman Foundation made a leadership grant of $3 million to establish an endowment providing ongoing support for the Hallman Director, School of Pharmacy. This exceptional gift was a key to securing both public and private support, providing crucial endorsement at an early stage of the School’s development.

Jake Theissen (left) was hired as the first Hallman Director. He joined University of Waterloo's then-President David Johnston (right) to found the first new Canadian pharmacy school in 20 years.

"People here take on things that others think impossible," says Theissen of University of Waterloo. Theissen came to the project after 31 years of teaching pharmacy at the University of Toronto.

The project team began recruiting first-class faculty and staff members. Marianna Foldvari (right, with her lab group) was the first faculty member hired after Jake Theissen – she joined the School in 2006. Foldvari was followed by faculty Shawn Wettig, Roderick Slavcev, Nancy Waite, and Jamie Joseph in 2007. All four are still with the School. Early staff hires were also essential to the School’s success. Laura Manning was the first Director of Advancement and Barbara Rae-Schneider was the first Administrative Officer. Ken Potvin was hired as the School’s Director of Admissions, Professional Relations, and Undergraduate Affairs, and he still holds the role today.

More exceptional faculty and staff were to follow: the School went from opening with only six faculty members and a handful of staff to having over 60 faculty and staff in 2018.

On March 14, a cold day with falling snow and howling wind, University of Waterloo leadership and municipal and provincial politicians gather to break ground on the King and Victoria site where the School of Pharmacy will be built.

"The School of Pharmacy will mean great things for Kitchener, for the University and for the future of health care," said David Johnston at the event.

Left to right: Kitchener Mayor Carl Zehr, Ontario health minister George Smitherman, Jake Theissen and David Johnston.

The School ran its first class on January 7, 2008. Construction of the Kitchener satellite campus was not yet complete, so the first year of classes were on University of Waterloo's main campus. The vanguard class (right) contained 91 pharmacy students who came to Waterloo Pharmacy from across Ontario.

The first co-op work term ran September-December 2008. Co-operative education in pharmacy was new in Canada at this time, and early employers of our students showed both generosity and foresight in their decision to hire Waterloo Pharmacy. The co-op model has been embraced and become a hallmark of our program: our students take jobs across the province and around the world and we now have on average 30% more jobs than students every work term. 

Teaching began in the newly completed School of Pharmacy at the intersection of King and Victoria, Kitchener. The School welcomed its second cohort of students.

The building has received multiple architectural awards. In 2010, the design team received a Design Exchange Silver Medal for commercial architecture. In 2011, the team won a Design Excellence Award from the Ontario Association of Architects.

The Ontario Pharmacists Association hosted the first OPA Cup, an annual hockey game where University of Toronto and  University of Waterloo pharmacy students face off to be the top pharmacy hockey team in the province. University of Toronto won the first game, but of the nine OPA Cup games from 2009-2017, Waterloo Pharmacy has won six.

On April 17, 2009 the School held its grand opening, an event which featured local politicians and university leadership. This was followed by a public open house where over 2,000 people from the KW community stopped by for guided tours with University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy students and staff.

The Integrated Health Building next door to University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy was opened. The building houses the Centre for Family Medicine, the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine run by McMaster University, and a vision clinic run by the University of Waterloo School of Optometry.

The University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy received the Innovative Involvement Award at the Volunteer Impact Awards Kitchener-Waterloo. This award recognizes an individual or organization that exhibits innovation and creativity in volunteer engagement. The School was nominated for the community service-learning program, a unique part of our curriculum which partners students with local organizations to gain experience with and empathy for a vulnerable population in our community.

University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy launched an accredited graduate program at the Master's level. The Masters of Science in Pharmacy program has experienced significant interest since its launch. Originally, sixteen students were enrolled in the program.

On Saturday October 22, Rx2011, the first class of University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy students graduated.

"The first student pharmacists to graduate from the University of Waterloo's School of Pharmacy were truly an exceptional group," said David Edwards, Hallman Director. "As the first to experience our innovative curriculum, they provided the faculty with invaluable feedback that will benefit future generations of Waterloo student pharmacists. We look forward to seeing what kind of impact this vanguard class will make in their role as medication therapy experts in the Canadian health care system."

The Waterloo School of Pharmacy received the Canadian Pharmacists Association’s Certificate of Recognition. This CPhA award is conferred on pharmacy groups or professional organizations to recognize outstanding service or contribution to the profession and the community. Loblaw, a longstanding co-op employer, nominated the School, our first graduating class, and the faculty for this award.  Ken Potvin accepted the award on behalf of the School, thanking Loblaw and paying special tribute to our students, especially our Vanguard class, who, as he stated, “ took a chance on a new pharmacy program which had no building and very few faculty or staff at the time that they accepted admission. “ This award helps confirm that we are on track to achieving our goal of educating the medication therapy experts of the future and generating knowledge that will benefit the health of Canadians.

School of Pharmacy receives approval from the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities to offer an entry-to-practice PharmD program . The approval of the PharmD  degree will allow our faculty and staff to deliver a curriculum that fully prepares graduates to meet the medication management needs of the citizens of Ontario.  The program aligns with an expanded scope of practice for pharmacy that was recently approved by the province.  The use of medications is becoming increasingly complex making it critical that pharmacists, working in collaboration with other health care providers, ensure that drug therapy is safe and effective.

On February 20, 2013 the Ontario University Quality Council accepted the positive recommendation of its Appraisal Committee regarding the proposed Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmacy program at the University of Waterloo. The PhD program, referred to by the Quality Council as an "innovative program", was launched and has allowed the University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy to expand its graduate program and the research conducted by graduate students.

The Ontario Pharmacy Evidence Network (OPEN) was founded with a $5.7 million Health Systems Research Fund from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. OPEN is a multi-institutional research network co-led by Waterloo Pharmacy's Nancy Waite and Lisa Dolovich from the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto.

Today, OPEN is one of Canada’s leading collaborative programs in improving medication management, with more than 50 researchers and over 100 student and trainee members. Many Waterloo Pharmacy faculty members are OPEN researchers, and the Ministry funding represents the largest research grant received by a School researcher to date. 

Left to right: David Edwards, Nancy Waite, Lisa Dolovich, Kitchener Centre MPP John Milloy and Marlee Spafford

In January, Waterloo Pharmacy became one of the first Canadian pharmacy schools to launch a PharmD program, replacing the Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy program. The School also began the process of developing and delivering a bridging program so that students who graduated from the BScPhm program could also earn a PharmD through the a mix of online and in-person education. Roll-out of these PharmD programs began in 2014.

Jake Thiessen, the Founding Director of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Waterloo, receives the 2014 Pillar of Pharmacy Award from the Canadian Foundation for Pharmacy, for his lifelong commitment to the pharmaceutical profession.

As Founding Director, Thiessen had a clear vision of what would make an exceptional pharmacy program and made it come to life at the University of Waterloo. He promoted students getting hands-on experience and applying classroom knowledge to the real world by developing the first co-op pharmacy program in Canada. Over time, he has obtained more than 16.5 million dollars in research funding and has pursued research in many domains, such as cancer treatment. He also led an independent review looking into chemotherapy under dosing in Ontario in 2013, commissioned by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.

Five years after University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy graduated its first class, the School held its first reunion. Coinciding with University of Waterloo's Reunion weekend, the event is now an annual tradition that welcomes back alumni and includes continuing professional development and socializing.

The University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy graduate program continued to grow with 38 graduate students enrolled in MSc and PhD streams. To showcase the diversity and innovation of University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy graduate student research, the School held the first Pharmacy Research Day. The day featured oral and poster presentations and guests from the university and the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmacy Research Day is now an annual tradition at the School.

Common ailments are generally defined as uncomplicated medical conditions that can be diagnosed and managed without medical intervention. 

“While non-prescription medications can effectively manage certain conditions, many common ailments require prescription drugs for effective and long-term treatment,” says Professor Nardine Nakhla of the Waterloo School of Pharmacy.  “Under these circumstances, allowing pharmacists – knowledgeable, easily accessible, and skilled clinicians – to assess and prescribe would eliminate the need for many of these patients to seek care elsewhere (e.g., emergency department), improving the efficiency of health care, reducing physician visits and wait times, and increasing the accessibility to prescription drugs."