Summer program on campus trains future leaders in veterinary medicine

Chosen from 53 veterinary colleges worldwide to participate in the 10-week Leadership Program at the College of Veterinary Medicine, some of the two dozen participating students break for a snack while touring laboratories of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., last month. From left are Christina Lofton, program coordinator; Lisa McElroy, Cornell; Fernando Fukuzato, Oregon State; Carolyn Prince, Virginia-Maryland Regional; and Mieke Baan, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Veterinary Image Lab

Two dozen select veterinary students from around the world are partway through an intensive, 10-week experience in critical thinking and research now under way at the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine, called Leadership Program.

If the career tracks of previous Leadership Program participants are any indication, the college should be hearing lots more of this summer's class, said Douglas McGregor, professor of immuology and longtime program director. He points, for example, to Constantin Von der Heyden, a 1996 Leadership Program graduate who went on to become a Rhodes scholar in environmental studies at Oxford University, and to Lucy Neave, a 1997 participant who subsequently received a Fulbright scholarship in creative writing. Then there's Steven Daley, from the 2000 program, who now is studying pathology as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, and Robin Yates, a 2001 student, who now is a Fulbright scholar at the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine.

That kind of success is almost assured, McGregor believes, because Leadership Program participants have to be exemplary to gain admission.

"We select students who are the best of the best," he said. "They have superb academic records but also have achieved things in their lives that suggest they could be future veterinary medicine faculty or leading research scientists in government or industry."

Joint sponsors of the Leadership Program are the National Institutes of Health, the Merck Co. Foundation, Pfizer Inc., Pharmacia Inc., the Marilyn M. Simpson Charitable Trust, the Wellcome Trust, the Albert C. Bostwick Foundation and the R.K. Mellon Family Foundation.