Chapel Hill, N.C. — Fred Eshelman, chief oexecutive officer and founder of Wilmington-based PPD Inc., has donated $1 million to to the School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to support the school's Educational Renaissance initiatives.

The Educational Renaissance will address the needs of the next generation of students who are expected to learn very differently from the students of the past, said Bob Blouin, dean of the School of Pharmacy.

The School's Educational Renaissance will move the knowledge transfer aspect of education – such as a traditional lecture – out of the classroom and put it online. Students would come to class fully prepared to learn to apply that knowledge, which is the key to developing the critical thinking skills so important to a pharmacist, Gary Pollack, the school's executive associate dean, said.

In January, Eshelman pledged $9 million to support cancer research at the School of Pharmacy. He made a $20 million gift to the school in 2003. Eshelman said he made his most recent gift to help the School of Pharmacy reach its potential.

The gift was matched by the Pharmacy Network Foundation, which works to promote and enhance pharmacy service in order to improve the health and welfare of the general population.

PPD is a contract-research organization formally known as Pharmaceutical Product Development Inc.