Ohio Northern University will celebrate its 132nd Raabe College of Pharmacy Commencement Ceremony in the Sports Center on Sunday, May 8, at 9 a.m.

To commemorate the event, Tom Kier, a 1982 ONU pharmacy graduate, will deliver the commencement address. Adam Smith, a graduating sixth-year pharmacy major from Dublin, Ohio, will deliver the student address.

A professor and administrator at the Raabe College of Pharmacy for 30 years, Kier first joined the pharmacy faculty in 1986 as a visiting clinical instructor. He became an assistant dean in 1987 and has served in administrative capacities ever since. His roles have included recruiting and counseling students, teaching ethics courses, and developing curriculum.

Since 2001, Kier has served as associate dean of operations and clinical instructor. In this capacity, he’s developed academic programs; coordinated, assessed and evaluated curriculum; managed the college’s budget; and carried out faculty policies. Kier also served as the college’s interim dean during the 2013-14 academic year. He is retiring from ONU at the end of the 2015-16 academic year, and all told, he has assisted almost 4,000 pharmacist graduates.

Throughout his career, Kier has helped advance the practice of pharmacy at ONU and in the state of Ohio by addressing ethics and the moral development of pharmacy students. He has introduced national assessments that evaluate the ethical development of pharmacy students at ONU. As ethical development and empathy are imperative to the pharmacy profession, his work has assisted in maintaining pharmacy’s status as one of the country’s most trusted professions.

Kier also has committed much of his professional life to assisting pharmacists and pharmacy students with addiction and chemical dependency. As a member of the Board of Trustees for Pharmacists Rehabilitation Organization Inc., he has ensured that pharmacists and pharmacy students have the resources and assistance they need to return to the practice of pharmacy in the state of Ohio when appropriate and safe. To further increase pharmacists’ knowledge of addiction and dependency, Kier has sponsored a number of pharmacy students to attend programming with him at the University of Utah’s School on Alcoholism and Other Drug Dependencies.

Kier received his Bachelor of Science in pharmacy from ONU, his Master of Arts in college student personnel from Bowling Green State University, and his Doctor of Philosophy in higher education administration from Bowling Green.

Doors to the ONU Sports Center will open for the Pharmacy Commencement Ceremony Sunday at 7:30 a.m. Guests should arrive by 8 a.m. The musical prelude will begin at 8:30 a.m., followed by the procession of faculty and students.