Summer/Fall 2013 PDF - University of Minnesota College of ...

SCHOLARSHIPS & FELLOWSHIPS
Scholarships
and fellowships:
Fostering tomorrow’s
veterinary leaders
As a veterinary student in Bogota,
Colombia, it wasn’t long before Cesar
Corzo realized that Colombian swine
farms had numerous problems but few
solutions.
“I started asking
if there were any
swine vets, and the
answer was, ‘Yes,
but too few,’”
Corzo recalls.
He responded
by becoming a
voracious reader
of every journal
article he could
find about pigs and their diseases.
“A lot of information was coming out of
the University of Minnesota, and I thought
that this was the place I needed to go to
learn,” Corzo says. “The University of
Minnesota was on my radar since 1999.”
In 2011, Corzo was awarded the inaugural
Dr. Sam Maheswaran Fellowship in Food
Animal Health, which recognizes a PhD
student of exceptional potential. It is only
one of many fellowships and scholarships
available through the College of Veterinary
LEFT: Dr. Cesar Corzo, who received the inaugural Dr. Sam Maheswaran
Fellowship in Food Animal Health, completed his PhD in 2012. He now works
for Tennessee-based PIC (Pig Improvement Company) as the fi rm’s Latin
American health services manager. Photo by Sue Kirchoff
RIGHT: Fourth-year DVM student and VetFAST program participant Mike
Nagorske testifi ed about student debt and loan forgiveness before the
Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee at the Minnesota
Legislature on February 5.
Medicine (CVM). In fiscal year 2013,
the college awarded more than $80,000
in fellowships to promising graduate
students.
This year, the college will also provide
a record $472,000 in scholarships to
veterinary students recognized for
academic excellence, clinical proficiency,
leadership and community service, and
business aptitude. Some scholarships are
targeted at supporting students in specific
academic tracks, such as those working
on a dual DVM and master’s of public
health degree or those studying food
animal medicine, an undersupplied area of
veterinary medicine.
“Many veterinary students accumulate
unimaginable debt, and scholarships play
a significant role in decreasing that debt,”
notes Bill Venne, chief development
officer for the College of Veterinary
Medicine. “With the new Fast Start 4
Impact program at the University of
Profiles Summer/Fall 2013 17