Pharmacy Network Foundation honors Peter Edwards

Pharmacy students loved Peter Edwards ’68. Now all future pharmacy students will love him, too.

Thanks to the generosity of a five-year, $500,000 commitment by the Pharmacy Network Foundation, Edwards will be honored for generations to come as the namesake of the Peter F. Edwards ’68 Student Lounge.  

Edwards, who joined the MUSC College of Pharmacy in 1968 and retired as director of external affairs in 2009, passed away earlier this year.

The Pharmacy Network Foundation has long been one of the college’s most important and influential benefactors. In 2007, the Raleigh-based foundation pledged $1.5 million to help build a new pharmacy education facility, which began construction this year and is scheduled to be completed in 2022. In addition to the lounge, the foundation is also sponsoring a tree to be planted in Edwards’ memory.

“I am incredibly grateful to the Pharmacy Network Foundation for honoring the life and legacy of Peter Edwards,” said Philip D. Hall, dean of the MUSC College of Pharmacy. “He had a very special relationship with students and it is such an appropriate way to recognize Peter’s contributions to his community, his profession, and the world at large.”

Located on the first floor of the under-construction new pharmacy facility, the Student Lounge and Study area will be one of the larger student gathering spaces dedicated to pharmacy students. It also features smaller tables for gathering and includes cabinet space, refrigerator and microwave.

At the start of the “Building the Future of Pharmacy… Together” fundraising campaign, foundation board member Jimmy Jackson, a long-time friend of Edwards, raised the issue of MUSC’s facility needs with Pharmacy Network Foundation board members Andy Barrett, Milton Whaley, Julian Upchurch, Don Hill and foundation president Mickey Watts.

Their intent was to inspire MUSC pharmacy alumni to support the college’s building campaign. It worked. Alumni have contributed thousands of gifts during the course of the campaign, which came to fruition this past April when the first ceremonial spade of earth was dug for the new pharmacy facility.