NSU Silverman College of Pharmacy — Dismissal & Appeals

Written by Zachary Gaynor, attorney · The Florida Bar, admitted 2016 · court admissions. Reviewed 26 September 2026.

Who decides whether an NSU pharmacy student is dismissed?

At NSU’s Barry and Judy Silverman College of Pharmacy, academic dismissal follows automatically from the triggers in the student handbook, and the decision paths run through the dean. A dean’s decision resulting in suspension or dismissal can be appealed to the college’s Appeals Committee — within ten business days, on limited grounds, at a closed hearing where non-university persons are not available for consultation. The committee’s decision is final and binding.

What triggers dismissal

The Silverman College of Pharmacy student handbook (College-Specific Policies and Procedures, 2024–2025 edition) lists the academic dismissal triggers for the Pharm.D. program, including: cumulative GPA below 2.0; failing three or more courses — or 66.7 percent of attempted credits — in a single semester; failing four or more courses at any point in the program; failing any repeated course; remaining on academic probation for more than a year with continuing failures; taking more than six academic years to complete the entry-level program; and a determination by the dean that legal, ethical, behavioral, or professional-conduct factors would keep the student from attaining expected professional standards.

The remediation rules feed those triggers in ways students miss. A passed remediation reassessment converts the F to a C–; an unsuccessful attempt leaves the original F but does not count as a second failure. Miss the scheduled remediation exam and you take a zero with no makeup. Fail a course, become ineligible for remediation, repeat the course, and fail the repeat — that is dismissal, no committee discretion required. And failures accumulate across the whole program: repeating a failed course does not remove it from the four-failure lifetime count.

Probation has its own teeth: a term GPA below 2.0, any didactic or experiential course failure, or repeating a year puts you there, strips online self-registration and organizational offices, and stays until the GPA recovers and failures are remediated.

The appeal: ten business days, narrow grounds, no one in the room with you

A student appealing a suspension or dismissal must submit a written appeal letter to the chair of the Appeals Committee within ten business days (excluding weekends and school holidays) of the date of the letter conveying the dean’s decision, with a concise statement of all relevant facts and the result sought. Late appeals “may not be heard.”

For decisions coming out of the Student Professional Conduct Committee (SPCC), the grounds are only two: new, relevant evidence that was unavailable earlier and would substantially alter the outcome, or a failure to follow university procedures that would substantially alter the outcome. The hearing is informal, closed, and internal — the handbook states that nonuniversity personnel are not available for consultation during these hearings, so counsel is not in the room. Witness lists are due two business days out, and only witnesses with genuinely new information are considered. Fail to appear and you waive the appeal. The committee’s decision is final.

What that structure means in practice: the appeal letter is the case. It has to be built like a filing — the timeline, the documentation, the procedural defects, the new evidence properly framed as new — because there is no second round and no advocate at the table. That preparation, done behind the scenes, is exactly the work I do in these matters. NSU is private, so the leverage is the college’s own written rules, applied exactly.

The stakes below the surface

Two provisions deserve more attention than they get. First, readmission after dismissal or withdrawal means starting over: no application for readmission for at least 12 calendar months, and reapplication only as a first-year student — years of completed coursework gone. Second, a dismissed student is responsible for notifying the state board of pharmacy of the change in status and the effect on the pharmacy intern license — a licensure consequence that follows the academic one.

Grade disputes run on a separate, sequenced track — instructor first, then up the administrative chain to the dean as the final level — and skipping a step forfeits it. For experiential (rotation) grades the chain has its own sequence ending with the dean.

Where the governing documents are

The Silverman College of Pharmacy Student Handbook (the college-specific policies section carries the academic standing, remediation, dismissal, and Appeals Committee provisions summarized above, per the 2024–2025 edition) and the NSU Health Professions Division catalog. The edition for your enrollment year governs — verify against the current one before relying on any deadline.

The federal money on the line at Nova Southeastern

More federal Direct Loan money flows to Nova Southeastern University than to any other school in Florida: $708.3 million in the 2025–26 award year alone. Most of it is graduate and professional debt — 9,762 graduate students borrowed $274.7 million in unsubsidized federal loans, 7,767 took another $384.7 million in Grad PLUS loans, and parents added $24.2 million through Parent PLUS.

Every dollar of it rides on academic standing. A dismissal, a failed Satisfactory Academic Progress evaluation, or a mid-term withdrawal sets off federal rules that decide whether aid continues, whether money already disbursed has to go back, and — under the borrowing caps in effect since July 1, 2026 — whether a student who leaves can still finance a return. For health-professional students the timing rules bite hardest: remediation terms, leaves, and repeated courses all feed the federal pace-of-completion math. The academic fight and the financial aid fight are the same fight, and the windows are short. How those rules work: SAP appeals and academic dismissal.

On the Department’s financial responsibility test, Nova Southeastern’s most recent published composite score is 3.0 (fiscal year 2022–23) — a passing score on the –1.0-to-3.0 scale, where 1.5 and above passes. How to read that number: the federal warning signs guide.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid Data Center, Direct Loan volume by school, award year 2025–26 (cumulative through June 30, 2026). University-wide federal Direct Loan totals.

Other NSU and Florida health-professional programs

These pages set out the procedure at related programs: NSU Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine, NSU College of Dental Medicine, NSU College of Optometry, and all Florida pharmacy schools.

Common questions

I failed a repeated course. Is there anything left to do?

Failure of any repeated course is on the automatic-dismissal list, so the remaining moves are the appeal (ten business days, new evidence or procedural grounds) and any defect in how the failure or the remediation was handled — a missed notification, a grading irregularity, an accommodation that was approved but not delivered. Those defects are found by reading the record against the handbook, line by line.

Can I have a lawyer at the Appeals Committee hearing?

The hearing is closed and the handbook states nonuniversity personnel are not available for consultation during it. The lawyer’s work is the written appeal and your preparation — done before the hearing, where it counts.

What does “reapply as a first-year student” actually mean?

Exactly what it says: after 12 months, a dismissed or withdrawn student may reapply only to start the program over, with adequate evidence that the circumstances behind the dismissal have changed significantly. It is the strongest reason to fight the dismissal now rather than plan on returning later.

Does my dismissal affect my intern license?

The handbook puts the burden on you to notify the board of pharmacy of the status change and address the intern license. Handle it deliberately — with advice — because licensure applications later will ask about it.