The University of Calgary’s veterinary school is moving toward earning accreditation this fall and hopes to admit its first students in September 2008.
Representatives from the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association visit Calgary this June, and provisional approval is expected by September.
Developing a new faculty from scratch takes time, said dean Alastair Cribb, who is recruiting staff, working on developing curriculum, overseeing construction and encouraging start-up research projects.
“It hasn’t taken any longer than I thought it would,” he said.
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“We are actually doing this in pretty good time.”
The school has $6 million worth of research grants, which will fund projects on mastitis in dairy, cattle reproduction, respiratory problems in horses, climate change effects on disease in wildlife and the potential impact on livestock and humans.
It will be able to accept 30 students for each year of the four year program and has already hired 26 of the expected 65 faculty members.
Four associate deans and four interim department heads have been found, and an executive director is expected to be hired within a few months.
Most of the faculty members who have been hired are now on campus working on curriculum and research projects with graduate and doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows.
They are also meeting with provincial veterinarians and officials from the government and agriculture industry.
The school will use classrooms that are being added to the medical school at Foothills Hospital in Calgary and a clinical unit for livestock that is under construction north of the city.
However, students will also work in the field with practising vets. Using a distributed teaching model, these adjunct professors can contribute to the program from the field by instructing undergraduates and working with graduate students.
The school hopes to eventually work on projects with Agriculture Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
It will also look for summer students from other vet schools who can work in Calgary with researchers, test the proposed curriculum and work through the admissions process. The students can compare the U of C program to their own schools and offer suggestions on possible improvements.
