On behalf of the College of Veterinary Medicine, I would like to extend greetings to K-State alumni and friends. It seems like I just arrived on campus to welcome this year’s incoming class of veterinary students. Yet here it is the end of another academic year and the Class of ’99 has joined the ranks of more than 5,000 K-State graduate veterinarians. Congratulations to the graduates, their families, and their teachers!!

Isn’t that how life is? The busier we are and the more involved we become, the faster life goes? Sometimes it helps to pause, reflect, and ask ourselves: Are we just staying busy or are we doing the right things? From my perspective, the College of Veterinary Medicine is busy doing the right things! Having graduated from K-State’s College of Veterinary Medicine in 1970, being gone for nearly 30 years, and returning home, I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and I have a tremendous sense of pride in my alma mater.

In a society that is changing dramatically at an ever-increasing rate, I believe that our college has recognized that we need to embrace change and help prepare our students for the future. We are also trying to respond to our constituents in ways that will help them solve modern-day problems and we are striving to conduct research that is cutting edge and relevant. What an exciting place to be!

We have pledged to maintain core values of a veterinary medical curriculum and preserve the care-giving attitude that is central to health professions.

I would like to highlight some of our programs and activities that should continue to bring distinction to K-State well into the next century.

Food animal practice
In cooperation with the department of animal sciences and the University of Nebraska’s Great Plains Veterinary Educational Center in Clay Center, Neb., K-State is ideally suited to train veterinarians for food animal practice. We intend to be good stewards of our teaching and research missions in this important area of veterinary medicine and agribusiness, and providing leaders for the livestock industry.

Food Safety
We have a production public health and production agriculture responsibility to improve food quality and protect the livestock industry from economic and health-threatening disaster, such as E. Coli, Listeria and foreign animal diseases.

Veterinarians have historically played a key role in meat inspection and controlling infectious diseases of livestock, but we also believe, in the event of intentional sabotage of the food chain, we would be called into immediate action. In order to better protect people and animals from inadvertent or intentional threats to food safety and livestock production, we are seeking funding for a food safety/infectious disease/biocontainment research building.

In cooperation with the Colleges of Agriculture and Human Ecology, we are engaged in on-farm, packinghouse, and food processing research. We are seeking funding for an infectious disease/ biocontainment research building that would marry experimental slaughter floor facilities with modern research laboratories. If we are successful, this building will complete the original plan, begun in the 1970’s, for a four-building veterinary complex, one of which would be dedicated to infectious disease research.

Internationalization
We are engaged in faculty exchanges and graduate education with international scholars. Beginning in the Fall Semester of 2000, we will embark upon a new admissions policy that will allow up to two international students to enroll in the DVM curriculum, competing for positions from the out-of-state pool of applicants. These activities are increasing the ethnic and culture diversity of our College.

Curricular review
We are exploring better ways to integrate information, teach more effectively, and prepare our graduation veterinarians for the marketplace. That we might become more involved in advanced training for the profession’s paraprofessional nursing support, veterinary technicians. We are also exploring ways that we might become more involved in advanced training for veterinary technicians and the profession’s paraprofessional nursing support personnel.

Veterinary Scholars
We have established an early-admission policy for high-achieving high school graduates who are enrolling at K-State and complete an undergraduate degree. We hope these students will enter the DVM with less pressured, broader-based undergraduate educational experiences

Research, Training
We are striving to build strategic relationships with academic, industrial and private partners. We seek support for DVM/PhD, resident/PhD and clinician/scientist post-doctoral training programs from traditional granting agencies, as well as from veterinary-related industries.

Due to the rapid expansion of board-certified clinical specialty hospitals in metropolitan centers, we see a need for shared clinical residency training programs between our veterinary hospital and specialists in private practice. Such interactions might expand our access to animal patients that could become involved in clinical research programs.

These are a few of the exciting things that are taking place in the College of Veterinary Medicine. We invite you visit our Web site and stop by to visit us whenever possible. Our Web site address is www.vet.ksu.edu.