Rufus Ashley Lyman was Dean and founder of two colleges of pharmacy, editor and founder of the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, and an active member and officer in local and national pharmaceutical organizations. He devoted his professional life and talents to raising the standards of pharmaceutical education and of the profession in his native Nebraska and throughout the United States.
Lyman, son of William Graves and Sophie Lee Lyman, was born in Table Rock, Nebraska on 17 April 1875. He attended public school and graduated in 1892 from the high school in Table Rock. Lyman received a B.A. degree from the University of Nebraska in 1897, an M.A. in parasitology from the same school in 1899, and a doctor of medicine degree there in 1903. Lyman married Carrie Day of Keokuk, Iowa on 1 July 1899. They had four daughters: Esther, Caroline, Elizabeth, and Louise, three of whom graduated from the University of Nebraska School of Pharmacy; and two sons, Rufus A. Lyman, Jr., Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins University), M.D. (University of Nebraska), and Edwin Day Lyman, M.P.H. [master of public health] (Harvard University), M.D. (University of Nebraska).
Eight years after his appointment as professor of physiology and pharmacology in the University of Nebraska College of Medicine in 1900, Lyman was made Director of the newly created School of Pharmacy at his Alma Mater. When the School of Pharmacy was elevated to college status in 1915, Lyman became its Dean, a position he held until 1946. He was also appointed Chairman of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology in the College of Medicine, and Director of the Department of Student Health Services at the University of Nebraska.
Lyman's firm stand for progressive demands for higher professional and educational standards in American pharmacy was actively forwarded through his participation in the American Conference of Pharmaceutical Faculties (ACPF). He was vice-president of ACPF in 1915, and president of the organization in 1916. Later Lyman was chairman of the Executive Committee of the Conference, and a committee member during nearly all of his professional career.
In a further effort toward the same goals, Lyman founded the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education in 1937, the only journal in the world devoted entirely to pharmaceutical education and educators. He used it as a sounding board for maintaining high standards and better communication within the profession.
In 1946, when Lyman retired as Dean of the University of Nebraska College of Pharmacy, he was seven years beyond retirement age, but enthusiastically accepted a new challenge and founded the College of Pharmacy of the University of Arizona. He was its Director from 1947 to 1950.
Dean Lyman was honored at a testimonial dinner in 1947 at which he was awarded the Remington Medal, pharmacy's highest honor. In 1956, a year before his death, Lyman was again honored when the University of Nebraska announced plans for a new pharmacy building to be known as Lyman Hall.
