Donald E. Letendre, PharmD, FASHP
Donald E. Letendre is dean emeritus and professor at the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy. Following completion of his Doctor of Pharmacy degree and clinical residency at the University of Kentucky, he served as assistant director and assistant professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center. He was on the staff of ASHP for nearly two decades, serving for much of that time as director of accreditation services. Immediately before his responsibilities at Iowa, he was dean and professor at the University of Rhode Island and executive secretary of the Rhode Island State Crime Laboratory Commission.
As a clinical practitioner, educator, association staff member, and now academic administrator, Letendre has been privileged to serve countless students and postgraduate residents throughout his career and has actively participated in the development and implementation of standards that have helped shape pharmacy practice and residency and technician training programs worldwide. He is the only known pharmacy dean to have spearheaded the construction of new pharmacy facilities at two public universities.
In 2024, Letendre was named a Fulbright Specialist, one of a select few pharmacists to receive the distinction. He was assigned to help spearhead the development of a Pharmacy Institute for the Republic of Kosovo through the University of Prishtina Faculty of Medicine.
His other awards and special citations include the Iowa Pharmacy Association Robert G. Gibbs Distinguished Pharmacist Award, the association’s pinnacle recognition in 2022; the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy Lifetime Achievement Award and Hall of Distinguished Alumni in 2020; Outstanding National Dean of the Year Award from the American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists in 2020; and the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy’s Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award in 1999. He was named an honorary residency graduate by New York’s Montefiore Medical Center (1989) and the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics (1993).
A native of Acushnet, Massachusetts, Letendre is the eldest of eight children, son of a fifth-generation cabinetmaker, and a first-generation collegiate. He is married to his high school sweetheart, the father of four, and grandfather of thirteen.
