A view of the new Veterinary Medical Center at the College of Veterinary Medicine, scheduled to be dedicated Friday.
Robert Barker/University Photography
By Roger Segelken
Dedication ceremonies set to begin at 1:30 p.m. Friday, June 7, will mark the official opening of the new Veterinary Medical Center at Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine.
The five-story facility, under construction since 1994 with $54 million in funding from New York state, houses three animal hospitals, four academic departments and parts of two veterinary service units: the Companion Animal Hospital, the Farm Animal Hospital and the Equine Hospital; the departments of Microbiology and Immunology, Pharmacology, Clinical Sciences, and Pathology; as well as some facilities for the Diagnostic Laboratory and Laboratory Animal Services.
The Veterinary Medical Center is the second in a three-phase, $90-million
construction and renovation project, the largest of its kind ever undertaken for
the State University of New York. The first, the Veterinary Education Center,
was
completed in 1993. Beginning this year, refurbishing of Schurman Hall for
faculty and administration office spaces and conversion of the former animal hospital
to instructional facilities ultimately will increase the college's usable space by
70 percent.
Officials from Cornell, the State University of New York, the New York State Legislature and veterinary professional societies will speak at the dedication, which will be conducted under a tent to the east of the new center. Among those scheduled to speak are: Hunter Rawlings, Cornell president; Franklin M. Loew, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine; State Sen. James Seward and State Assemblyman Martin Luster; MacDonald Holmes, president of the New York State Veterinary Medical Society; Irving Freedman, SUNY vice chancellor for capital facilities; and Mara DiGrazia, D.V.M. '96, past president of the Cornell Student Chapter of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
In an executive citation prepared for
delivery at the dedication, New York Gov. George E. Pataki said: "This world-class
research institution is important to its students, people who care for companion animals,
farmers, the horse racing industry, the veterinary profession and the pharmaceutical and
biotechnology industries."
Animals also will, appropriately, have a role in the dedication: Distinguished guests and participants will be escorted to their seats by trained guide dogs and police dogs.
The state College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell is one of 27 veterinary schools in the United States and one of only three in the Northeast. Since 1896, the college has graduated more than 4,200 veterinarians.
When Cornell University opened in 1868, it was the first American university to include a professor of veterinary medicine on the faculty. In 1876, Cornell was the first university in the United States to award a D.V.M. degree (to Daniel E. Salmon, who later identified the infectious pathogen salmonella). The College of Veterinary Medicine was established by an act of the state Legislature in 1894, and the college officially opened in the fall of 1896.