Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 23, 1993 TAG: 9302230344
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
15-YEAR WAIT
THE VIRGINIA-MARYLAND Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, based at Virginia Tech, has risen to national prominence in its field.It has trained about 600 veterinarians. It has treated 287,000 farm animals, in a program vital to the production of a safe, abundant food supply.
It has treated 32,000 cats, dogs and other small animals, mostly family pets. It has also treated 10,000 horses - including multimillion-dollar race horses - at its respected equine medical center in Leesburg.
It pioneered the Center for Government and Corporate Veterinary Practice, a national training facility located in College Park, Md. About a fourth of the vet school's graduates find work in government agencies or with corporations - often working with physicians in biomedical labs seeking cures for human and animal diseases.
The vet school has made its mark despite setbacks and financial struggles along the way. Those who hold the purse strings in both the Virginia and Maryland state houses have been too often ready to dawdle on commitments made in 1978. Now, finally, the vet school is about to be completed.
Possibly today, weather permitting, construction will begin on the $8.3 million, 60,000-square-foot "phase-four" project. This will add an electronic classroom, additional labs and clinic space - doubling the amount of research space on the Tech campus and giving the vet school the capacity it was promised in '78.
The project is among those made possible by Virginia voters' approval of a $613 million bond issue last November. "We haven't changed the plans in 15 years," says the vet school's dean, Peter Eyre. "That plan was literally sitting on the shelf; that's why we were able to start it so quick."
Indeed, the vet school has waited long and patiently for the space it needs. Of the bond-issue projects commendably supported last year, its will fittingly be first out of the gate.