The Ohio State College of Veterinary Medicine plans to use a $39 million grant from the Stanton Foundation to establish a new program of fund a chair position, seven faculty, 12 staff members, a new lab and a mobile veterinary unit. Credit: Nick Roll | Campus Editor
The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine will be advancing its educational opportunities following a $39 million gift from the Stanton Foundation.
The donation will be used to establish the Building Preeminence in Veterinary General Practice Education program, which will focus on honing professional skills and help students gain real-world experience, said Rustin Moore, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, and the Ruth Stanton chair of Veterinary Medicine.
“The ultimate goal (of the new program) is to enhance our educational model to produce highly skilled, competent and confident, practice-ready graduates,” Moore said in an email.
According to an OSU news release, the donation is set to be rolled out in two parts, with $19 million awarded now and $20 million to be given after five years following the completion of set milestones.
The first half of the donation will go toward establishing the Frank Stanton Endowed Chair in General Practice and Canine Health and Wellness, seven faculty and 12 staff members. It will also fund the design and construction of a clinical and professional skills lab, and the purchase of a mobile veterinary unit for the college’s Outreach Medicine Program.
Moore expressed excitement about the new facets of the program, but particularly the mobile veterinary unit.
“(It) will enable us to expand our services to those vulnerable populations of people in our community, so that the pets of these people are provided appropriate basic levels of veterinary care that they are not able to receive otherwise,” Moore said. “This not only helps these pets and people, but it helps our students gain clinical experiences and introduces them to a variety of people and populations that instills in them the need for civic responsibility.”
The rest of the gift will be used to endow the program, after the completion of milestones that the Stanton Foundation and the vet school have agreed upon.
“We are confident that we will meet, and hopefully exceed, the milestones that were developed together between us and the Stanton Foundation and were mutually agreed upon,” Moore said, though he did not elaborate on the specifics of those goals.
The veterinary college has a long history with the Stanton foundation, with Frank Stanton having established the Ruth Stanton chair position, currently held by Moore, in 2002 to honor his wife.
Stanton created the foundation in order to complete “charitable intentions” he was unable to accommodate in his lifetime, such as “canine welfare, the development of more informed citizens and the protection of First Amendment rights,” according to the release.
Stanton is the former president of CBS, serving from 1946 to 1971. He completed both a master’s in 1932 and Ph.D. 1935 in psychology from OSU, and also holds an honorary doctorate in law.
