Veterinary Medicine Commencement Ceremony May 3 – Live Stream Available

Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine will award 116 professional DVM degrees during the college’s 109th commencement on Tuesday, May 3. The ceremony will begin at 6 p.m. in Auburn Arena.

In addition, 11 Masters of Science in Biomedical Science (thesis and non-thesis) will be conferred and seven candidates will be awarded the Doctor of Philosophy in Biomedical Science.

The 116-member DVM class includes 40 students from Alabama and 35 students from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The remaining 41 at-large students hail from 21 states, including Ohio, North Carolina, Nebraska, California, Georgia, Maryland, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and New York.

During the ceremony, seven students will have their parent or grandparent, who is a veterinarian, complete their hooding.

To date, the College of Veterinary Medicine has awarded 6,657 degrees.

The commencement address will be given Dr. Mary K. Boudreaux, professor emeritus of the college, having taught in the Department of Pathobiology since 1986 while performing research in the area of hemostasis with an emphasis on platelet physiology and pathophysiology.

Dr. T.C. Branch, president of the Alabama Veterinary Medical Association, will administer the Veterinarian’s Oath and representing the Kentucky Veterinary Medical Association will be Dr. Alice Mills, the organization’s current president.

The commencement ceremony will include a special recognition of the 65-year Southern Regional Education Board agreement between Auburn and the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Two members of class of 1955, Dr. Abram Allen, Paducah, Ky., and Dr. Steele Mattingly, Villa Hills, Ky., who enrolled at the CVM in 1951 as part of the first Auburn DVM class to graduate Kentucky students under the program, will be recognized. Providing remarks on the SREB agreement will be John McMillan, Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture, and Ryan Quarles, Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture.

Dr. Boudreaux, a 1979 graduate of Louisiana State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, practiced for two years in California before she was accepted into a Clinical Pathobiology Residency program at Cornell University, where she obtained a Ph.D. in 1986.

Dr. Boudreaux has served as the Faculty Athletics Representative since 2010 and is also the chair of the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics. She serves as the official representative of Auburn University in NCAA and SEC affairs.  She is a member of the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Society for Veterinary Clinical Pathology, and Phi Zeta, the Honor Society of Veterinary Medicine. She has been the recipient of several awards including: The Beecham Award for Research Excellence in 1991, the LSU Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2006, the Pfizer Award for Research Excellence in 2008, the Jack Mara Scientific Achievement Award in 2009, the Pamela Wells Sheffield Award in 2009, and the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2012.

The ceremony will be live streamed through Panopto. To access the stream, use the following link during the event:

https://aucvm.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=9f3bc760-6191-4d37-9fc4-081cdced41b1 

Bailey Distinguished Alumni

Three alumni who have distinguished themselves professionally will be recognized as the 2016 Wilford S. Bailey Distinguished Alumni. They are: Drs. Terri Clark of Bethesda, Md., Edward F. Murray, Jr., of Pell City; and Wade A. Northington of Hoover.

A commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, Dr. Clark was recently promoted to rear admiral, becoming only the second female veterinarian in the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) Commissioned Corps to achieve this senior officer rank.  She earned the DVM in 1988 and became a diplomate of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine in 1996.

Dr. Murray grew up on a cattle and poultry farm in Rosa, Ala., where he saw firsthand the importance of health management. Following graduation from the College of Veterinary Medicine in 1973, he joined a mixed animal practice, and he and a partner built Pell City Animal Hospital, a full-service veterinary facility. In 1987, he and his wife built Coosa Valley Equine Center, dedicated to providing the most advanced medical and surgical equine veterinary services. Dr. Murray concentrates his efforts on lameness and surgery.

A 1972 Auburn DVM graduate, Dr. Wade Northington began his career practicing companion animal, food animal, and equine medicine. In 1999, he became a case coordinator at Murray State University’s Breathitt Veterinary Center in Hopkinsville, Ky., and also began teaching pre-veterinary and veterinary technology students at Murray State. He became the director of the Breathitt Veterinary Center in 2004, a position he held until his retirement last year. He has been recognized as one of Kentucky’s most respected and passionate veterinary medical professionals.

The prestigious award is the highest honor given to an alumnus of the College of Veterinary Medicine and is named to honor the late Wilford S. Bailey, who held a 50-year continuous faculty appointment at Auburn, serving in positions ranging from instructor to University President. A 1942 graduate of the college, Bailey was the first recipient of the Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine Distinguished Alumnus Award. Following his death in 2000, it was named in Dr. Bailey’s memory. The Wilford and Kate Bailey Small Animal Teaching Hospital opened in 2014.