{"id":5652,"date":"2019-08-09T12:19:11","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T16:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qa.vet.purdue.edu\/news\/?p=5652"},"modified":"2025-04-09T14:24:05","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T18:24:05","slug":"inaugural-vet-up-college-graduation-ceremony-celebrates-achievements-of-participants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/inaugural-vet-up-college-graduation-ceremony-celebrates-achievements-of-participants.php","title":{"rendered":"Inaugural Vet Up! College Graduation Ceremony Celebrates Achievements of Participants"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Vet
Members of the inaugural Vet Up! College graduating class, sporting their new white coats, gather for a fun group photo along with PVM teaching assistants, and members of the PVM administration, faculty and staff, including (left, front-back) Assistant Dean for Diversity and Inclusion Latonia Craig, Dr. Darryl Ragland, Dr. Henry Green, and Director of Global Engagement Will Smith, II; and (right, front- back) Dean Willie Reed, Office for Diversity and Inclusion Program Manager Marisol Uribe, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Kathleen Salisbury.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This summer, the Purdue University College of Veterinary\nMedicine welcomed its first class of Vet Up!\u00ae College students. Vet Up! College\nis a six-week program for undergraduate students who are serious about going to\nveterinary school. Participants experience first-hand what it is like to be a\nveterinary student. Each of the six weeks during the program simulates a\ndifferent part of the four-year DVM curriculum. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Participants
The Vet Up! College curriculum included sessions across a variety of specialties and species, including this session on bovine veterinary care.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The program concluded with a graduation celebration on June\n28 in the Veterinary Medical Library. Dean Willie Reed started the ceremony by\nacknowledging the obstacles the students have to overcome in their journey to\nbecoming veterinarians and reminding them that they have a PVM family to help\nsupport them in their endeavors. \u201cYou all are very special, you\u2019re the first\nVet Up! College graduating class, a little like our first DVM Class of 1963,\u201d\nDean Reed said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dean Reed was followed by Dr. Latonia Craig, assistant dean\nfor diversity and inclusion and director of the Vet Up! program, who gave some insight\ninto the goals of Vet Up! College and the experiences that it provides to the\nparticipants. \u201cThis six-week program was designed to address two critical\nhealth professional disparities:  one, a\nnational and state of Indiana shortage of veterinarians in public health and in\nrural or food animal practice; and, two, a significant lack of underrepresented\nindividuals entering the veterinary profession,\u201d  Dr. Craig said.  \u201cStudents took a series of examinations and\nparticipated in mock interviews among many other things that are part of vet\nschool to give them a real idea of what it is like.\u201d  During their stay on campus, all of the\nstudents also completed the Center of Excellence for Diversity and Inclusion in\nVeterinary Medicine certificate program.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Edris
Edris Grate (right), of the Purdue DVM Class of 2021, prepares for a Vet Up! College session on equine examinations. The session was scheduled during the latter part of the program\u2019s curriculum, which represents the clinical years of the DVM curriculum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One of the Vet Up! College participants, Victoria Johnson, who\nis a rising senior studying agriculture with an animal sciences concentration\nat Prairie View A&M University in Texas, also spoke during the ceremony,\nexplaining what the program meant to her.  \u201cWe learned so much in regard to different\naspects of veterinary medicine, such as animal behavior and animal welfare, as\nwell as the importance of mental wellness in this field,\u201d Victoria said. \u201cWe\nwere taught how to prioritize learning material in the DVM curriculum, because\nthere is a lot of information and not a lot of time to digest all of it. I\nreally enjoyed our interactions with the professors and visiting the off-campus\nswine and dairy facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vet Up! Program Manager Marisol Uribe thanked the teaching assistants (TAs) who helped the students through all six weeks of the program. The TAs provided support and assistance with coursework and presentations and also planned extracurricular activities for the students to unwind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Craig then recognized five outstanding Vet Up! students,\nwho were selected based on their professionalism, attitude, academic record, and\nemotional investment in the program. They each received a certificate of\nrecognition and a personal copy of Stedman\u2019s Medical Dictionary.  Congratulations to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Jona Fletcher (highest scorer on all
    examinations taken throughout program)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Milton Ortiz Rivera<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Myia Ratcliff<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Alyssa Warren<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Keishla Marrero Acosta<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    <\/div>\n\n\n
    \n
    \"Outstanding
    Vet Up! College participants (left-right) Alyssa Warren, Keishla Marrero Acosta, Myia Ratcliff, Milton Ortiz Rivera, and Jona Fletcher were honored as outstanding students based on their professionalism, attitude, academic record, and emotional investment in the program. Each received a certificate of recognition and a copy of Stedman\u2019s Medical Dictionary.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

    Finally, all of the graduates were called forward one by one\nto receive a certificate of completion of the Vet Up! College program and a Vet\nUp! white coat, mirroring the White Coat Ceremony conducted for Purdue DVM\nstudents when they enter their clinical year, which is the final year of veterinary\nschool.  Though it\u2019s not veterinary\nschool, completing the Vet Up! College program is no small feat.\nCongratulations to all the graduates! Purdue Veterinary Medicine wishes all of\nyou the best for your future endeavors, and we hope to see you back here in a\nyear or two as DVM students!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This summer, the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine welcomed its first class of Vet Up!\u00ae College students. Vet Up! College is a six-week program for undergraduate students who are serious about going to veterinary school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5657,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1174,28],"tags":[76,26,911,1108,418,819,824,1176,103],"class_list":["post-5652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversity","category-our-impact","tag-diversity","tag-featured-story","tag-latonia-craig","tag-marisol-uribe","tag-office-for-diversity-and-inclusion","tag-vet-up","tag-vet-up-college","tag-vet-up-national-hcop-academy-for-veterinary-medicine","tag-willie-reed"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5652"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29557,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5652\/revisions\/29557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}