Associate Dean's Column

It is with a sense of excitement and anticipation that I take this opportunity to extend these welcoming and congratulatory remarks to all of our graduate students and everyone who is interested in learning more about our program on the BMVS Graduate Student Association's new web-site.

This is an exciting time for our college's research and graduate education programs. Over the course of the college's first quarter-century of service, it has fully established the excellence of its instructional and clinical programs. Today, and looking forward, VMRCVM Dean Gerhardt Schurig has identified the growth and expansion of our college's research and graduate education programs as a strategic priority, and we are already seeing some significant results.

Funded programs increased 36% from 2005 to 2006, our level of NIH support continues to climb, and we recently earned two prestigious NIH Training Grants. Our administrative team is developing the architecture for our migration into translational research programs, and our students are earning prestigious honors such as the Virginia Tech Graduate Student of the Year Award, and more recently, claimed honors in the Edward Via Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine Research Recognition Day.

You have chosen to pursue your graduate education during an exciting period in the history of our college and the history of science. We have seen quantum advancements in the life sciences made possible through our greater understanding of the underlying molecular processes, and we can all look forward to a future of discovery that is limited only by the boundaries of imagination.

Much of what you achieve during the years ahead will depend upon the expectations and the demands with which you choose to challenge yourself. You are of course fortunate to enjoy the support and the talents of an outstanding faculty, excellent laboratory facilities that we will continue to enhance, and a culture of inspiration and creativity that seeks to promote your individual success along with our collegiate achievement.

We need the engagement and support of every graduate student. Recognize the power of cooperation and collaboration. Explore the margins of your field and beyond. Think about how you can focus the power of the basic sciences on real-world problems. And use your graduate student association as a fulcrum of creativity and incubation, where ideas are born, shaped and ultimately transformed into meaningful scientific advancements.

Reach out to each other, your faculty mentors, and the vast resources of this university as you challenge yourself and your colleagues to achieve new levels of success. Together we will continue to build a community of scholarship and discovery that will prepare you well for the years ahead as you help illuminate the frontiers of science.

Dr. Roger J. Avery
Associate Dean for Research & Graduate Studies