{"id":8299,"date":"2020-04-24T11:01:21","date_gmt":"2020-04-24T15:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qa.vet.purdue.edu\/news\/?p=8299"},"modified":"2020-04-24T11:01:21","modified_gmt":"2020-04-24T15:01:21","slug":"new-assistant-dean-at-university-of-illinois-college-of-veterinary-medicine-is-purdue-alumna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/new-assistant-dean-at-university-of-illinois-college-of-veterinary-medicine-is-purdue-alumna.php","title":{"rendered":"New Assistant Dean at University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine is Purdue Alumna"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Dr. Sara Connolly, a member of the Purdue DVM Class of 2006, now is serving in the newly created position of assistant dean for student success at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine.&nbsp; Those who knew Dr. Connolly as a PVM student who was active in both College and campus programs and organizations, are not surprised to see her move into an administrative role focused on veterinary students success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/sara_connolly.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8304\" width=\"400\" height=\"241\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/sara_connolly.jpg 615w, https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/sara_connolly-300x180.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/sara_connolly-391x235.jpg 391w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>After earning her DVM degree, Dr. Connolly stayed on at Purdue to complete a residency in clinical pathology.&nbsp; She then spent a year and a half working at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine before accepting a position as a lecturer at the University of Melbourne. According <a href=\"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/sara-connolly-dean-student-success\/\">to an article posted on the University of Illinois CVM website<\/a>, Dr. Connolly loved Australia, but realized it was \u201ctoo far from home.\u201d Two years later she returned to Illinois to take a position at Antech in Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Within a year, however, Dr. Connolly\u2019s love for being around students drew her back to the University of Illinois, where she accepted a faculty position. Board-certified as a clinical pathologist, Dr. Conolly has served as a clinical assistant professor in the College\u2019s Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory since 2015.&nbsp; On March 23 of this year, she began a 50 percent appointment as assistant dean in the Office of Academic and Student Affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Though Dr. Connolly currently is working in isolation due to a work-from-home mandate, she characterizes her new role as one that facilitates connections in several ways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>connecting current veterinary students with opportunities to explore careers through internships and externships;<\/li><li>connecting students from populations not proportionately represented in the veterinary field (including males, people from lower economic strata and rural areas of Illinois, as well as under-represented ethnic populations) with opportunities to envision a veterinary career; and<\/li><li>connecting practicing veterinarians with opportunities to mentor prospective veterinarians as well as current veterinary students.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI love the service part of my job in clinical pathology, but I realized that teaching and working with students on rotations was actually my favorite part,\u201d Dr. Connolly said. \u201cThis new position allows me to combine my passions for advocacy and volunteering in my personal life with my passion for helping students.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/connolly-iditarod.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8305\" width=\"302\" height=\"227\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/connolly-iditarod.jpg 320w, https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/connolly-iditarod-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/connolly-iditarod-313x235.jpg 313w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 302px) 100vw, 302px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The remaining 50 percent of Dr. Connolly\u2019s academic appointment is split between continuing her service and teaching roles in clinical pathology and completing the research portion of her PhD in the Department of Pathobiology.&nbsp; Her research interests include exploring the aging process as it occurs in a population of canine athletes\u2014Iditarod sled dogs\u2014compared with sedentary pet dogs. She has collected data and\/or served as a veterinarian at the Iditarod race in Alaska from 2017 to 2019.&nbsp; She also is an avid triathlete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Connolly knows it will take some time to adjust to the new distribution of time in her academic appointment, so she plans to start by setting discrete goals for her assistant dean role. \u201cI don\u2019t want to take on anything that I can\u2019t accomplish to the best of my ability,\u201d Dr. Connolly explained. \u201cMy first priority is to improve our web presence for prospective students, which I hope to accomplish over the summer. I\u2019m also going to focus on building a statewide network for student recruitment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Given that a disproportionate number of Illinois veterinary deans have come from a pathology background, including former dean and Purdue alumnus Dr. Herb Whiteley (PU DVM \u201877), does Dr. Connolly think her assistant dean role could lead to being dean of a veterinary college some day?&nbsp; \u201cThat\u2019s never going to happen!\u201d Dr. Connolly said with a laugh. \u201cAlthough it would be funny if it did, and I was quoted in print saying otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Click here to <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/sara-connolly-dean-student-success\/\" target=\"_blank\">view the complete story about Dr. Connolly on the University of Illinois website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Sara Connolly, a member of the Purdue DVM Class of 2006, now is serving in the newly created position of assistant dean for student success at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8304,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,29],"tags":[107,1648,56,1647],"class_list":["post-8299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-our-people","tag-alumni","tag-dvm-class-of-2006","tag-homepage","tag-sara-connolly"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8299","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=8299"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8312,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8299\/revisions\/8312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}