12/19/95

Sam Hendrix, 334/844-3697

(Editors: The following is offered for your consideration as a possible op-ed piece):

AU COLLEGE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE WILL GET BACK ON TRACK WITH ACCREDITATION

When funding is tight in higher education, as it is in Alabama, instruction invariably wins out over facilities and other capital improvements, maintenance and renovations.

That's certainly the current case for Auburn University's College of Veterinary Medicine. A reaccreditation team from the American Veterinary Medicine Association recently gave Auburn's program outstanding marks in teaching, research and outreach.

But the team also determined Auburn has an inadequate holding facility in its 36-year-old Large Animal Clinic for animals which may have communicable disease.

Auburn is upgrading its isolation facilities as a short term solution to this essential requirement. The long term solution, both for Auburn's College of Veterinary Medicine and other accredited programs within public higher education in our state, is increased support for vital capital improvements.

The long range goal is a new Large Animal Clinic, which will cost in the vicinity of $30 million. Such a clinic will enable Auburn to continue to provide to the people of Alabama the most advanced training for their future veterinarians. A new clinic will also provide faculty members with the laboratories and equipment they need to create new knowledge through research, which is needed to maintain and strengthen the health of large and small animals in Alabama.

The top administrators of Alabama's major universities agree that continued inadequate state funding will gradually compromise valuable academic programs.

Auburn President William V. Muse says AU and other state universities can anticipate more accreditation problems because those standards are so closely related to the resources available to support them. University of Alabama President Roger Sayers predicted recently that his institution will lose library accreditation in the next two years because of funding cuts that resulted in staff and periodical subscription reductions.

The AU College of Veterinary Medicine has NOT lost accreditation. Limited status is not uncommon among North America's 31 veterinary colleges, and AU fully anticipates that full accreditation will be restored within one year. Auburn's veterinary medicine program has been built on a mix of public and private support, an acknowledgement of the program's major impact on the state's food animal and companion animal industries.

The College of Veterinary Medicine does not place blame on the Auburn University administration, nor on the governor, nor on the Legislature. The college recognize the limitations each group has with the funds made available each year, and recognizes the many needs across all levels of education in our state, from K-12 all the way through graduate and continuing professional education.

Some reports recently noted that "the state provides 44 percent of the school's entire budget of $387.13 million for the year that began Oct. 1." This, of course, refers to the total AU System budget, not that of the College of Veterinary Medicine. However, it is noteworthy that the college as a line item within the university budget has also had to assume responsibility for generating 40 percent of its annual operating funds from non-state appropriations.

Auburn's College of Veterinary Medicine plays a major role in the health and well-being of the state's and region's food animal and companion animal industries, and we are constantly working to maintain the standards of excellence that have served these industries for over 103 years.

------

(Boosinger is interim dean of Auburn University's College of Veterinary Medicine)

dec95:AU-vetmed