The students are back! Parking lots are filling up, and there is the “Pullman version” of traffic (my commute can shift by a minute or two). And we always start by building community. We held the annual White Coat ceremony welcoming our incoming class of 142 veterinary students. They are dressed in summer business fancy, and then they don a pressed, white lab coat to symbolize the virtues of altruism, responsibility, duty, honor, respect, and compassion — all part of being a veterinarian, a doctor. This capstone event followed a week of orientation. And now, anatomy class begins. Convocation welcomed our undergraduates and included the WSU mascot, Butch T. Cougar (visit wikipedia), the WSU Fight Song, videos, and words of welcome. Our graduate student orientation included a dinner hosted at the home of a college leader. Centering our education, first and foremost, in community.
We have a special, close-knit community in Pullman, but our community includes so many others. One way our college engages with and extends to our broader community is by asking people to join us in teaching. Alumni have long returned to campus to teach in diagnostic challenges and communication labs. We have guests with diverse backgrounds teach in our financial literacy course. And as we strategize about the array of opportunities our students need to have excellent, hands-on clinical education with beef and dairy cattle, small ruminants, and with pigs and poultry, we will be reaching out to our alumni and asking them to partner with us in training our students where they work, rather than in Pullman. Our partnership with Seattle Humane is 13 years old. We embed a full-time WSU faculty member at Seattle Humane to train our fourth-year students in high-volume spay/neuter surgery, dentistry, and other general practice procedures. This month we will post a job announcement to hire another practitioner to contribute to our programs at Seattle Humane. If you have ever wondered what it would be like to be a part of our community and teach clinical skills at Seattle Humane — do consider.
And we ask our community for feedback. Earlier this month, I asked whether the College of Veterinary Medicine should consider a new name that reflects the full breadth of what happens here or keep the one it has carried for the past century. More than 700 of you have already weighed in, and I am grateful for every response. There is still time to add your voice (go to survey). The survey closes August 31, takes five to seven minutes, and is confidential. No decision has been made, and none will be made without hearing from you first.
Thank you for being part of our community.
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Be safe, healthy, happy, and stay hopeful. As I said on my first day on the job, the future is bright.
Take care and Go Cougs!