The Purdue College of Veterinary Medicine has been awarded a $3.18 million federal grant to launch a program designed to increase diversity in the profession and address veterinarian shortages in rural areas.
The Vet Up! program —short for Vet Up! The National Health Careers Opportunity Program Academy for Veterinary Medicine — will complement Purdue’s Center of Excellence for Diversity and Inclusion in Veterinary Medicine.
“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 the college’s dean, Willie Reed, DVM, Ph.D. “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.”
Purdue noted in its Sept. 17 announcement that the veterinary college has a “proven history of effective diversity programming and partnerships with high schools, historically black colleges and universities and state entities to design and deliver curricula that provide otherwise-inaccessible opportunities to students.”
The new program will feature:
- Vet Up! Champions, a yearlong program to assist high school students, working adults and undergraduate students on the path toward a veterinary medical degree.
- Vet Up! College, a summer immersion program to prepare undergraduate students to apply to veterinary school.
- Vet Up! DVM, an effort to support Purdue veterinary medical students and prepare them for careers in veterinary shortage areas.