Mercer's College of Pharmacy Dean Receives Prestigious Award

Press Release

The Georgia Pharmacy Association (GPhA) presented its Larry L. Braden Meritorious Service Award to Hewitt W. "Ted" Matthews, PhD, longtime dean of Mercer University's College of Pharmacy and Mercer's senior vice president for health sciences, during the organization's annual convention earlier this month in Amelia Island, Florida.

The Braden Meritorious Service Award recognizes the Georgia pharmacist who, over his or her career, has made extraordinary, invaluable contributions not only to GPhA, but to the practice of pharmacy in the state of Georgia. As the highest honor GPhA bestows on a pharmacist, the award is not presented annually.

In his introduction, GPhA President Bobby Moody described Dr. Matthews as "a force for good, a force for progress in our profession…simply an original in Georgia pharmacy." Moody acknowledged Dr. Matthews' visionary leadership at Mercer, his mentoring of countless student pharmacists, and his service to GPhA, including chairing the committee that rewrote the Pharmacy Practice Act in Georgia.

Dr. Matthews is a graduate of Mercer's pharmacy school and received his MS and PhD degrees in pharmaceutical biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he was a National Institutes of Health Pre-Doctoral Fellow and a Fellow of the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education. He joined the faculty of the Mercer School of Pharmacy in 1973, was appointed the Hood-Meyer Professor of Pharmacy in 1982, and was named dean of the College of Pharmacy in 1990.

He was appointed senior vice president for health sciences in 2012 and oversees the Mercer Health Sciences Center, composed of the School of Medicine, College of Pharmacy, Georgia Baptist College of Nursing and College of Health Professions. The Mercer Health Sciences Center enrolls more than 2000 students on Mercer's campuses in Macon, Atlanta, Savannah and Columbus.