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Dr. Ted Valli to Leave Deanship in 2001
Dr. Ted Valli to Leave Deanship in 2001In April, University of Illinois provost Richard Herman announced that Dr. Ted Valli has asked to step down as dean of the College.
“We all owe Ted a great deal for his principled and vigorous leadership of the College these last years,” wrote Dr. Herman, in a letter sent to College of Veterinary Medicine faculty, staff, and students.
A national search for a successor will soon be under way, with the goal of having a new dean in place by January 2001. Dr. Valli will continue as dean until a successor is aboard and will then assume a faculty position in pathology. Search committee members had not been announced at the time of publication.
“Ted’s contributions during his deanship have strengthened the College in many important respects,” noted the provost. “I believe we are well positioned to attract a strong leader who will be able to build upon Ted’s legacy.”
For Dr. Valli’s reflections on his decade as dean, please see the column on page 2.
“Medicine” Dropped from Hospital, Diagnostic Laboratory NamesThe College dean and executive committee recently implemented name changes for two College units. The names “Veterinary Teaching Hospital” and “Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory” were adopted to simplify the longer “Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital” and “Laboratories of Veterinary Diagnostic Medicine” and to make the official names conform to current informal usage.
Teaching Hospital Seeks Information from Referring DVMsReferring veterinarians, the hospital is trying to increase its electronic communications with practitioners. If you refer clients, please send your fax number and email address to Dr. Art Siegel at 217/333-5363 or a-siegel@uiuc.edu.
Library Fulfills “Virtually” Any Request
by Mitzi Williams, Veterinary Medicine LibrarianStudents still fill the seats in the library, but the number of faculty members visiting the library has definitely diminished in recent years. This is probably because of the growing number of library resources available online.
Recently about 880 journals, mostly in the fields of life science, agriculture, and medicine, were added to the online holdings. Though few veterinary journals are available online, the convenience of reading and printing complete articles via the Internet is a huge benefit to College faculty and students.
At left, Dr. Charles Wiedmeyer, veterinary pathobiology graduate student, accesses online journals with help from library graduate assistant Sarah Ziah.
For journal articles not found on campus or online, the ordering process has been made more time-efficient and simpler. Through the Loansome Doc service, orders are sent with a click of a button. After the journal is confirmed as unavailable on campus, the request is forwarded to other biomedical libraries via the National Library of Medicine’s Interlibrary Loan network. About half of these fill the order electronically, eliminating the time wasted through mail and the poor print quality of facsimiles. A newly acquired scanner allows the Veterinary Medicine Library to send articles electronically to other libraries.
About 1,800 requests for the College of Veterinary Medicine students and faculty were processed in 1999. Free access is not possible for the majority of the Library’s resources due to contract restrictions, but alumni and other veterinarians and veterinary researchers can still make use of the Library through its fee-based Veterinary Information Service. More information is found at the Veterinary Medicine Library’s home page: www.library.uiuc.edu/vex.
Third Infectious Disease Conference Well AttendedMore than 100 registrants attended the Third Conference on New and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases, held April 20 and 21 at the College of Veterinary Medicine and organized by Drs. Roberto Docampo, Richard Isaacson, and Silvia Moreno, of veterinary pathobiology.
Registrants came from more than a dozen campus units as well as from regional institutions including Carle Clinic, Champaign, Ill.; Control Research Laboratories, Belleville, Ill.; Illinois State University, Normal, Ill.; University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; Northwestern University, Chicago; Rush Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center, Chicago; University of Nebraska, Omaha; and Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.
Seven lectures and 31 posters were presented. Speakers included Dr. Thomas E. Wellems, National Institutes of Health; Dr. Chester Moore, Centers for Disease Control; Dr. Dan Zilberstein, Washington University School of Medicine; Dr. Linda J. Saif, The Ohio State University; Dr. Andreas J. Bäumler, Texas A&M University; Dr. Louis M. Weiss, Albert Einstein College of Medicine; and Dr. Peter Daszak, Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia.
The conference was dedicated to the memory of Dr. Norman D. Levine, professor emeritus of parasitology who died July 14. Dr. Levine taught veterinary parasitology at the University of Illinois from 1946 to 1983. Dr. Joseph DiPietro, dean of the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, spoke about the life and career of Prof. Levine.
Awards were given to four graduate students as outstanding poster presenters: Nohra E. Mateus-Pinilla, Viswanathan Srinivasan, and Mitchell Ho all of the Veterinary Pathobiology department, and Laura M. Selenke, of Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tenn.
Ceremony Marks Clinical Status of Fourth-Year StudentsFor the first time at Illinois, students entering clinical rotations in the fourth-year of the DVM program were recognized at a White Coat Ceremony held Sunday, May 7. More than 200 people, including students, faculty, and family, attended the ceremony in which faculty members helped students don a white laboratory coat and nametag to wear in the clinics.
“This is a step to commend the students for successfully completing their basic sciences studies and also recognize the contributions of the faculty who prepare students in the first years of the curriculum,” says Dr. Doug Yanik, assistant dean of Academic and Student Affairs. “A transformation takes place when students begin to practice medicine in rotations. We want to encourage them as they begin their final, clinical year.”
Student Club NewsCongratulations to everyone who participated last year in a blood drive organized by the Student Chapter of the American Veterinary Medical Association (SCAVMA) and to SCAVMA president-elect Abby Cowan, who made the drives happen. The College was honored as the most improved donor group at the annual recognition banquet of the Community Blood Services of Illinois Regional Health Resource Center.
Students on the Hill’s Feeding Committee, which disburses funds from the sale to College staff and students of pet food donated by Hill’s, awarded more than $20,000 to various activities in the spring semester. Among the expenditures was $4,000 for new surgery equipment and financial support for students traveling to Africa, Costa Rica, and destinations in the United States.
The Student Chapter of the American Association of Equine Practitioners had an active spring schedule. A joint meeting with the Society for Animal and Veterinary Ethics discussed the horse slaughter industry; members presented their opinions and experiences from trips to a slaughter plant in Dekalb. Several AAEP members worked at the Rolex 3 day event in Lexington, Ky. The group also held a very successful wet lab on joint injections and arthroscopy.
The 2000-01 officers will be Kathryn Wotman, president; Britt Soderstrom, vice president; Jay Thurgood, secretary; and Jennifer Hott, treasurer. Linda Gregard will head the ICU/colic team, Rachel Boyce will work in the Trakehner mare program.
Ethicist Addresses Issues in Veterinary MedicineDr. Bernard Rollins, a professor of philosophy at Colorado State University who in the 1970s pioneered the field of veterinary and animal ethics, gave a seminar and spoke at the March 28 meeting of the Student Chapter of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Jay Thurgood, president of the student organization Society for Animal and Veterinary Ethics, renewed his friendship with Dr. Bernard Rollins, whom Thurgood had met at a veterinary bioethics conference last year.
With colorful stories of this transplanted-East Coaster’s experiences with ranchers and others who populate the American West, Dr. Rollins illustrated Plato’s assertion that adults cannot be “taught” right and wrong but can be “reminded” to follow their moral instincts.
He also described recent societal changes that have brought about a shift in public attitude toward animal welfare: the population shift from rural to urban settings; the perception of companion animals as members of the family; successes in rights movements for women, minorities, and other groups; and dramatic changes that took animal-rearing practices from a focus on care (animal “husbandry”) to a focus on industry (animal “science”).
The College and SCAVMA jointly sponsored Dr. Rollins’s visit.
Class of 2004 AdmittedDespite a Friday morning power failure that threatened to keep would-be veterinarians in the dark, the March 23-24 Applicant Recruitment Program was a great success. The incoming Class of 2004 stands at 110 students. The number of applicants and students invited to interview and/or enroll is as follows:
Applied Invited to
InterviewInterviewed Admitted Accepted Illinois 241 113 112 85 85 Non-resident 715 165 78 70 25
Open HouseThe 2000 Open House, with the theme “Veterinary Medicine on Parade,” attracted a large crowd on a beautiful April Fool’s day. Committee chairs Jill Demers, Jamie Kenyon, David Luttrell, Jennifer Naumann, and Julie Slavin expressed their thanks to all the students who made the day a success. Awards for outstanding exhibits went to both the pathology and swine groups. The equine demonstration was recognized as the best demonstration.
Special thanks to the donors who supported Open House this year:• College of Veterinary Medicine
• College of Veterinary Medicine Alumni Association
• Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Inc.
• Mississippi Valley Veterinary Medical Association
• Waltham Brand Partners
Faculty Looks at Curriculum for the FutureMore than 50 College faculty members joined Illinois practitioners and leaders from other Midwest veterinary colleges to examine how well the current DVM curriculum prepares students to meet the changing demands of the profession.
The all-day retreat, entitled “A Current Curriculum for Future Veterinarians,” was held May 15. It focused on skills students need at admission to the program, in each year of the curriculum, and at graduation.
“We concluded that our curriculum as a whole is good and our graduates are competent entry-level veterinarians, but some areas need attention,” reports Dr. Gerald Pijanowski, associate dean of Academic and Student Affairs. “Specifically, we need to incorporate normal and abnormal animal behavior and basic business and management courses into the core curriculum and to revamp our nutrition offerings.”
Faculty members and other speakers made brief presentations on a variety of curricular issues to prepare the group for discussion. Topics and presenters are listed at right.
Seven members of the teaching hospital advisory board were included in the discussion to give guidance and input. They were Drs. Greg Ekdale (ISU ’76), Jay Nadler (’82), Gordon Rhine (’72), George Richards, Jr. (’67), Dave Tanaglia (’78), Dick Velders (MSU ’63), and William Wright (’66).
Associate deans for academic affairs from three other veterinary colleges offered their perspectives on curricular issues: Dr. Eldon Uhlenhopp, Iowa State; Dr. John VanVleet, Purdue University; Dr. Sue Hyland, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Nancy Diamond, from the campus’s instructional resources office, served as moderator.
The next step will be for the Courses and Curriculum Committee to determine how changes in the content and weighting of the current curriculum can improve the education of veterinarians of the future.
General Panel Presentations
Dr. Peter Eyre, dean, Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine—
Public Practice and KPMG Report
Dr. Debra Horwitz, behaviorist and St. Louis practitioner-—Animal Behavior
Dr. Doug Yanik, Illinois CVM—Nutrition
Dr. Larry Firkins, Illinois CVM—ManagementIllinois Faculty Presentations
Dr. Gary Althouse—Swine
Dr. Gordon Baker—Equine
Dr. Dawn Morin—Cattle
Dr. Doug Yanik—Public Practice
Dr. Cathy Greenfield—Small Animal Medicine/Small Animal Surgery
Dr. Ron Smith—First-year instruction
Dr. David Gross—Prerequisites for admission
Graduates Go for InternshipsEight 2000 graduates successfully secured internships through the national matching program: John Crandell, Purdue; Seth Ghantous, Illinois; Meredith Lockwood, VCA West Los Angeles; Robyn Rothberg, Animal Medical Center; Amy Skladzien, Mesa Veterinary Hospital; Taylor Spangler, Sacramento Animal Medical Group; Erica Swanke, Tufts; India Wood, Angell Memorial.
Dr. Hixon Receives Norden Award
Dr. James Hixon, who retired in March as professor of veterinary biosciences and assistant dean for academic and student affairs, received the Carl J. Norden Distinguished Teacher Award at the April 29 awards and scholarships ceremony. Fourth-year veterinary students selected him for outstanding teaching ability as well as character and leadership qualities.
Drs. Keith Bailey, of veterinary pathobiology, and C.W. Smith, of veterinary clinical medicine, were finalists. The award is sponsored by Pfizer Animal Health.
NIH Funds Training in Environmental ToxicologyThe College received a five-year training grant from the National Institutes of Health to provide stipend support for PhD students and post-doctoral fellows working on problems in environmental toxicology. Four veterinary biosciences faculty members—Drs. Rex Hess, (director), Sue Schantz, (associate director), Val Beasley, and Paul Cooke (both preceptors)—are involved in the grant, as are seven other University of Illinois faculty members from the departments of chemistry, food science and human nutrition, animal sciences, crop sciences, microbiology, and molecular and integrative physiology.
The only NIH training grant currently administered by the College and one of few on the University campus, this award confirms the College’s research strength in environmental toxicology.
Behavior Seminar Open to Practitioners“Applied Animal Behavior,” a 16-hour short course focused on canine and feline behavior, will be held at the College of Veterinary Medicine August 16 through 18. The speaker is Dr. Rolan Tripp, who presents a similar course at Colorado State University each year. Students, faculty, and staff of the College may attend. Practitioners may register to receive continuing education credit for the course.
For more information, contact the Student Affairs office at 217/333-1192.
![[White Coat Ceremony]](images/whtcoats.jpg)