PVM Establishes Vet Up! – A Federally-funded National Academy for Veterinary Medicine
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The new federally funded National HCOP Academy for Veterinary Medicine will build on Purdue Veterinary Medicine’s success in developing programs to foster a more diverse pool of applicants for veterinary college admission. Past program participants Micah Rollie (left) and Jessica Linder now are in the College’s DVM Class of 2020.
A $3.18 million federal grant is enabling the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine to expand access to the veterinary profession for talented individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds and address the need for more veterinarians serving rural areas and protecting food safety. The College received the grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to launch Vet Up!™ The National Health Careers Opportunity Program (HCOP) Academy for Veterinary Medicine.
The program will address a national shortage of veterinarians in public health and rural/food animal practice in the state and beyond, and a significant lack of underrepresented individuals entering the veterinary profession. Purdue was the only college of veterinary medicine to receive support. The goal of the program is to fill veterinary shortage areas with equity-minded individuals from underrepresented populations and rural areas.
The program’s work aligns with Purdue’s Giant Leaps celebration, acknowledging the University’s global advancements made in health as part of Purdue’s 150th Anniversary. The theme of Health and Longevity is one of four themes of the yearlong celebration’s Ideas Festival, designed to showcase Purdue as an intellectual center solving real-world issues. The other themes are Sustainable Economy and Planet, Artificial Intelligence, and Space Exploration.
Purdue has the only veterinary college in Indiana and is home to the Center of Excellence for Diversity and Inclusion in Veterinary Medicine, the nation’s only such center. Vet Up! will leverage PVM’s proven history of effective diversity programming and partnerships with high schools, historically black colleges and universities (HBCU), and state entities to design and deliver curricula that provide otherwise-inaccessible opportunities to students. A longstanding partnership with Purdue University’s Evaluation and Learning Research Center will assess the impact of the programming on participants and the veterinary profession.
The Vet Up! National Academy consists of three programs with a competitive selection process for admissions:
- Vet Up! Champions is a yearlong program to prepare high school students, working adults, and undergraduate students to attain their next level of education on the path toward a veterinary medical degree.
- Vet Up! College is a summer immersion program to prepare undergraduate students to competitively apply to a veterinary medical degree (DVM) program. Vet Up! College replaces PVM’s Access to Animal-Related Careers (A2RC) summer program which has been discontinued.
- Vet Up! DVM Scholars supports Purdue veterinary medical students throughout their professional degree program and prepares them for careers in veterinary shortage areas.
“It is very exciting for our College to be selected for this major, federally-funded initiative that seeks to address an issue we have been working on for several years within our College and the veterinary profession,” said PVM Dean Willie Reed. “We believe we are a natural choice to help achieve the objective of increasing the number of underrepresented individuals in veterinary medicine while also addressing the serious shortage of veterinarians in public health and rural/food animal practice.”
“This new opportunity enables us to expand the influence of our creative approaches to improving the diversity of the veterinary profession,” said Dr. Sandy San Miguel, PVM associate dean for engagement and program director. “We have assembled an amazing team of collaborators and look forward to working with them to launch this new National HCOP Academy for Veterinary Medicine.”
Interested in becoming a program sponsor? Contact Vet Up! to learn more about available sponsorship opportunities: VetUp@purdue.edu.
LEARN MORE: PurdueVetUp.org
Writer(s): Kevin Doerr | pvmnews@purdue.edu
