Welcome Mentors

Mentors,

Thank you so much for agreeing to participate and serve as the guinea pigs for the new format of the course. I hope it improves the experience for you as well as the students. I have posted some vital statistics for the class of 2012 below to allow you to get to know them a little bit better.

Average age: 22 (range: 20 - 49)

Gender: 59.7% female

Degrees earned: Associate's 16.7%; Bachelor's 54.2%

States represented: NC 38 students (52.8%); 6 students from GA; 4 students from each of VA, SC, FL; 2 students from each of TN, OH, MI, UT; 1 student from each of MD, MA, DE, PA, AL, AZ, CA; 1 student from Canada


Blog Layout

Each post will appear on the left-hand side of the blog, with the most recent appearing at the top of the page. To the right, there are a number of elements that have been added for your convenience. On the top right is the Wingate University School of Pharmacy logo. Clicking this image will take you to the School of Pharmacy home page. Below the logo is some information about the course and some insight into the change in format. Next you'll find an image of me. It serves no purpose other than to satisfy my intense vanity. Just kidding. I just wanted to remind everyone that there are actually people behind all of this electronic communication. Clicking my picture will provide you with more information about me. Below my picture is a direct link to my email address. Below my email address are two methods of sorting the posts found on the site. The "Labels" sort will sort the posts by topic, regardless of the date of the discussion. The "Blog Archive" sort will sort the posts by date posted, regardless of the topic. Thus, you will be able to search the blog by date or by topic if you would like to review previous posts. At the bottom of the page you'll find a listing of all mentors involved and a brief description of their current practice.


How it Works

The class meets once weekly on Tuesday mornings. No later than the preceding Friday I will publish a post summarizing the new topic along with any relevant readings, videos or sound clips for both the mentors and students to access. During class, we will have a follow-up discussion of the previous week's topic and introduce the new topic. Between the end of class on Tuesday morning and 5:00 PM (eastern) on Wednesday, a number of events will take place. The students will meet in groups and come up with questions related to the new topic and post these to the blog. At most, there will be 5 questions. In addition, I will (hopefully) be posting audio files that you can stream right from the blog. These audio files (aka podcasts) will be 20-25 minute recordings of the actual discussions I have in class with the students. Your role, at minimum, is to review these questions and provide your response/opinion/comments IF you have them. (Again, part of the reason for changing the format of the course was to ease some of the burden on the mentors. If the topic or questions don't apply to you or don't spark an interest - then please don't comment just because you feel like you have to. With that said, if you have something to add, please post it!) If you want to be a bit more involved, you're welcome to read the articles, watch the videos and listen to the podcasts. In terms of time, I will likely cut-off comments on Mondays at noon. So, you have from Wednesday evening to Monday at noon to provide a comment if you're inspired to do so. (To review or leave a comment, click the "Comments" link at the bottom of the post you would like to comment on. Feel free to try this out by commenting on this post.) This process will continue each week until the first week in December.