The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has received a gift of $140,000 from Gary Clark, PD, to increase the endowment of his family scholarship for the UAMS College of Pharmacy to a university scholarship.
Scholarships at UAMS that reach an endowment of $100,000 or more are elevated to the level of distinguished scholarships. Recently, UAMS created the university-level designation for scholarships that reach endowments of $250,000 or more. Clark’s gift enables his scholarship to reach that level of distinction.
The Gary Clark Family University Scholarship is the college’s first scholarship established at the $250,000 university level. When Clark created the scholarship more than a decade ago, he wanted to encourage pharmacy students to follow a variety of paths in the field, not just retail pharmacy. Now the scholarship can be awarded to multiple students each year, instead of just one.
“I really wanted to increase the scholarship enough that it could help several deserving students each year, rather than just one like before,” Clark said. “Dean Stowe tells me that will now be possible, and our family is very pleased.”
Clark, now retired, previously served on a College of Pharmacy advisory council for then-Dean Stephanie Gardner, PharmD, EdD, now the UAMS provost and chief strategy officer. It was toward the end of his tenure with the council in 2010 that Clark decided to fund a scholarship to benefit the college.