The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), the accreditation agency for pharmacy schools, is required to demonstrate to the U.S. Secretary of Education its expectations regarding a program's recording and handling of student complaints. ACPE must demonstrate a link between its review of compliants and its evaluation of a program in the accreditation process. Therefore, in order to demonstrate compliance with the U.S. Department of Education Criteria for Recognition, and with the prior review and advice of Department of Education personnel, ACPE requires pharmacy schools to provide an opportunity for pharmacy students to provide comments and/or complaints about the school's adherence to ACPE's Standards.
The colleges and schools of pharmacy accredited by ACPE have an obligation to respond to any written complaints by students lodged against the college or school of pharmacy which are related to the standards and the policies and procedures of ACPE. Any student wishing to file such complaints should follow these steps:
- Visit the ACPE Standards website to review accreditation standards. Complaints must relate to a standard
- Prepare a typed statement identifying the nature of complaint, standard(s) violated, and specific facts where possible (dates, times, places, persons involved)
- The completed complaint should be filed with the Office of the Associate Dean
- The file of student complaints will be made available for inspection and the resulting implication(s) to the accreditation of the professional program shall be noted in the Evaluation Team Report