School of Pharmacy

The Jacob Sear Scholarship was established in 2014 by Jacob Sear (B.S. 46/P) to provide tuition assistance in the School of Pharmacy at VCU. Sear was the child of Russian immigrants and spent a lot of his childhood in his parents' tailoring and retail clothing business. A gifted student, he graduated from high school at 15. During his senior year he began working in a pharmacy, where he developed an interest in medications. After deciding to pursue a degree in pharmacy he began an accelerated track and quickly was named to the dean’s list. However, his education was interrupted by World War II; he was trained in England to be part of a special Army unit that used his pharmacy training to repurpose captured medication to help the Allies medical supply lines.  He was deployed into France after D-Day and eventually finished in Germany.

After the war he returned to pharmacy school, earning his degree in 1946. He and his wife, Harriet, moved to Chicago where Sear bought a drugstore. Over the course of his career he acquired approximately 17 independent pharmacies in the Chicago area while he and Harriet raised their children Marilyn, Alan, and Michael. This scholarship was started to honor Mr. Sear’s life of service and his commitment to family, integrity, and the field of pharmacy.