Over the course of the Dean’s Summer Leadership Internship program in the College of Veterinary Medicine many different projects have been tackled.
Past Dean’s Summer interns have worked on diversity, equity and inclusion issues. They have studied how the rural veterinarian shortage could be addressed. And in 2021, two interns developed “Thrive,” a new student wellness program in the College.
This past summer was no different.
Felicia Pandorf, an incoming third-year student who spent her first two years as a vet student with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Professional Program in Veterinary Medicine, and Antonio Rodriguez-Torrado, an incoming biomedical sciences masters student worked on a variety of projects.
Among the projects the duo completed were:
- Collecting data on Iowa Livestock Health Advisory Council (ILHAC) seed grants.
- Creating interactive and simpler maps of the College of Veterinary Medicine building for first- and second-year students.
- Developing additional pipelines for high school students who have an interest in veterinary medicine.
- Served as peer mentors for the Undergraduate Veterinary Internship Program (UVIP) held in the college.
“This program allowed me to grow in my leadership skills through the lens of the veterinary field,” Rodriguez-Torrado said. “We got to work along with faculty and administrators and meet many of the people I interacted with once classes began in the fall.”
Part of the program took the pair outside the confines of the College of Veterinary Medicine. Along with Dr. Dan Grooms, the Dr. Stephen G. Juelsgaard Dean of Veterinary Medicine, and others, they traveled to the Chicago High School of Agricultural Sciences where they saw an agricultural magnet school up close.
They also traveled to the Humboldt Veterinary Clinic, had several leadership “lunch and learns,” and attended the Veterinary Leadership Experience conference.
“That was fun and helped me better understand how I interact with others,” Pandorf said. “The mapping project also helped me start to learn my way around the college.”
“These were all great projects to work on and we were allowed the freedom to dive in on how we would implement and make many of them possible,” Rodriguez-Torrado said.
February 2023