Gov. Spencer Cox, along with legislators, and Utah State University leaders, broke ground on Friday at 1400 North 1200 East for the university’s first Veterinary Medical Education Building. The new facility will house Utah's first four-year veterinary program, set to begin in 2025.
The atmosphere at the construction site was joyful, with over 200 community members in attendance. For many, this moment was long-awaited, including Gov. Cox, a former Aggie who spoke at the event.
“There’s always been one piece missing, and it's this piece,” Cox said. “It’s the one thing. We have our medical school, we have amazing business schools, we have everything else we’ve ever needed, but we never had this piece, and it just didn’t make sense. And now it finally makes sense that we’re closing that gap, and I’m so grateful that it's here at my alma mater.”
Dirk Vanderwall, the dean of the new college, said Friday’s groundbreaking was 117 years in the making. In 1997, a feasibility study concluded USU was not a suitable location for a veterinary school. However, in 2012, USU launched a two-year partnership program with Washington State University, allowing USU students to complete their veterinary degrees through said university.
As the 10-year anniversary of the partnership approached in 2022, USU revisited the idea of establishing a four-year program, and a new feasibility study indicated it was the right time to move forward.
The four-year program aims to produce veterinarians skilled in treating household pets, farm animals, and working within the agricultural field. A significant emphasis will be placed on communication, an aspect historically neglected in veterinary training, according to Vanderwall.
“Clients don't care how much you know until they know how much you care," Vanderwall said. "It's the ability to communicate and empathize and be compassionate with the client and the animal patient, or any patient. It’s that communication, it's that human interaction that is so important.”
The new building will include 10 mock veterinary examination rooms with observation areas equipped with one-way glass to facilitate teaching clinical communication. Vanderwall said graduates of the program will be ready to handle routine clinical work from day one.
“This will be a space that shapes future veterinarians' lives and the lives of their patients,” he said.
USU President Elizabeth Cantwell also spoke at the groundbreaking. She said the establishment of a veterinary program is extremely important in addressing systemic issues in food security.
“We will be launching, I think, an entirely new perspective from this location,” Cantwell said. “A new building will be amazing.”
Former Utah Representative John Mathis, who helped to establish the Two Plus Two partnership program, shared a personal story about the new veterinary program's significance. Mathis's father dreamed of becoming a veterinarian but had to abandon his goal due to a lack of opportunities in Utah.
“He couldn’t do it,” Mathis said. "He had to be by his family. He’d been gone too many years. And so, he gave up on his dream, because of miles and distance.”
Soon after, Mathis vowed that if he were ever in a position where he could help kids follow their dreams in Utah, he would take on the challenge.
“It’s about Utah kids being educated in Utah, living in Utah, and following their dream,” Mathis said. “We have the greatest resource in the world, and that is our youth. And they now have an opportunity to pursue their dream like my father never did.”
