UAMS Names Heard Provost, Gardner Associate Provost
| LITTLE ROCK – The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) named Jeanne Heard, M.D., Ph.D., provost and Stephanie F. Gardner, Pharm.D., Ed.D., associate provost as part of a leadership restructure to better serve the state.
In addition to her current role as chief academic officer, as provost Heard will work closely with deans of UAMS colleges on faculty affairs and college-level budgets. As associate provost for society and health, Gardner, dean of the UAMS College of Pharmacy, will work across all colleges to ensure that UAMS is educating and training health professionals to meet changing health needs and to develop interprofessional and community-based educational experiences like the UAMS 12th Street Health and Wellness Center, which opened in January.
“As we step back and consider ways in which we can restructure our organization to best serve the people of our state, we are grateful to have talented leadership already in place who are willing to take on additional responsibilities to help us move forward with our mission,” said UAMS Chancellor Dan Rahn, M.D. “I am grateful to Dr. Heard and Dr. Gardner for their willingness to do this for the benefit of UAMS and all Arkansans.”
Heard, a former associate dean for graduate medical education and professor of internal medicine in the UAMS College of Medicine, returned to UAMS in 2010 from Chicago, where she helped lead the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education for seven years.
Gardner has been dean of the UAMS College of Pharmacy since 2004. Before that she served as chair of its Department of Pharmacy Practice.
UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a hospital; a statewide network of regional centers; and seven institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, the Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, the Psychiatric Research Institute, the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging and the Translational Research Institute. Named best Little Rock metropolitan area hospital by U.S. News & World Report, it is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has more than 2,800 students and 790 medical residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 10,000 employees, including about 1,000 physicians and other professionals who provide care to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the VA Medical Center and UAMS regional centers throughout the state. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com.