VCU news

By Cynthia McMullen

Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy Dean Emeritus Warren E. Weaver died July 10 at age 93. He taught at the school from 1950 to 1956, served as dean from 1956 to 1981 and continued to teach part time for several years after his retirement.

Weaver, the fifth dean of the school, holds the record for longest tenure in that position. His School of Pharmacy career began when then-dean R. Blackwell Smith Jr. (who went on to become president of the Medical College of Virginia) hired him away from the University of Maryland. Weaver arrived in Richmond as an associate professor in medicinal chemistry, having already established a reputation in the field.

While at MCV and then VCU, he established several pivotal pharmacy programs, including the master’s and Ph.D. degree offerings. He implemented one of the first pharmacy experiential education programs in the country, and he initiated the postbaccalaureate Pharm.D. program, which led to the transition from bachelor’s to Pharm.D. degrees for graduating pharmacists.

“I think he was such a great guy,” said School of Pharmacy alumnus Al Schalow (B.S. ’61). “He always had time for everybody, and his door was always open. 

“If he saw your grades weren’t up to par, he wanted to help head them off before you couldn’t recover. He was always most gracious.”

Weaver was a founding trustee of the Virginia Pharmacists Association Foundation and, on the national level, he served as 1968-69 president of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. Near the end of his tenure as dean, Schalow recalls, the school sponsored a roast for Weaver. “Everybody thought the world of him.”

The year he retired, Weaver founded Christian Pharmacists Fellowship International, which had its beginnings in several informal gatherings in the late 1970s at pharmacy organizations such as AACP, VPhA and the American Society of Hospital Pharmacists (now the American Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists). CPFI, now based in West Palm Beach, Florida, has more than 65 student chapters at universities nationwide, including at VCU, as well as international student groups.

“Everyone looked to Warren as someone whose ideas we wanted to support and whose lifestyle we wanted to emulate,” said CPFI President Fred Eckel, who first knew Weaver through AACP and the American Pharmacists Association.

Post-retirement recognition for Weaver included winning VPhA’s Outstanding Pharmacist Award in 1994 and being named 1999-2000 honorary president by APhA.

In 2006, the School of Pharmacy class of 1956 celebrated its golden reunion by endowing a lectureship in Weaver’s name. Each April since then, the Warren Weaver Endowed Lectureship has been presented during Reunion Weekend by current pharmacy faculty. In addition, the Warren E. Weaver Scholarship is awarded annually to a student who is outstanding in character, leadership and academic performance.

Weaver's many legacies include several alumni connections: His daughter, Julie Fortner (M.D. '90, housestaff '93) and son, Glenn Weaver (B.S. business administration ’70), are VCU graduates. Fortner’s husband Glenn is also an alum (D.D.S. '89) as is Weaver’s wife Laura (B.S. mathematics '70).

Weaver is survived by his wife of 45 years, Esther Schiesser Weaver; two other daughters, Karen Rhoads and Janet Wagstaff; a stepdaughter, Barbara Adair; a brother, Norman; and 23 grandchildren, step grandchildren, great-grandchildren and step great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Virginia June Burkholder Weaver, and an infant son, David.

 

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