Veterinary Medicine is seeing a Unique Change in its Classrooms

10/10/11

By: Amber Hovey

Walking into a classroom of Iowa State University’s college of veterinary medicine in 1879, when the college was first founded, you would see a noticeable difference from today’s classroom.  What originally began as a class with all men has turned into a class where women rule the majority.

With 148 students in the 2012 graduating class, 74 percent of those students are women, and for the fall 2011 semester, women account for 71 percent of total undergraduate enrollment in the college of veterinary medicine according to the ISU 2011 fall semester enrollment reports.

This is an 11 percent increase from the ISU 2000 fall semester report.

At a school where men outweigh women by 12 percent, the college of veterinary medicine is among the few ISU colleges, in which the majority of students are women.

The college of engineering for an example has 904 women undergraduate students and 5,031 male undergraduate students.

It is hard to pinpoint why this change is occurring said Claire Andreasen, the college of veterinary medicine’s associate dean for academic and student affairs.

Andreasen, however, knows first hand what it was like before women were the majority in veterinary medicine. Andreasen attended the University of Georgia and then Texas A & M University.

At Texas A & M University, Andreasen graduated with a class of 77 students, of which only 17 were women.

“When I was a women and was with all men, that didn’t stop me,” said Andreasen.

Andreasen describes veterinary medicine as a great career that provides women with many different career paths and opportunities such as working for the government or traveling the world.

ISU’s college of veterinary medicine is not the only university seeing an increase in women students.

According to the University of Minnesota’s college of veterinary medicine’s website, 77 percent of the veterinary medicine class of 2012 is women. 

At the University of Florida, 72 percent of the 2012 class is women.

“Sometimes it would be nice to have more balance,” said Lauren Larsen as she went on to explain to overcrowded female locker rooms.

Larsen, a second year veterinary medicine student, has noticed the large gap between women and men numbers. The ratio between men and women are evening out, said Larsen.

ISU does has a higher percentage of men in veterinary medicine than other universities, part of the reason may be because of the large agricultural program ISU offers that may not be offered at other universities.

Man or woman, veterinary medicine combines health and science and provides the chance to make a positive impact on the world, said Andreasen.

“It’s so diverse, it impacts animal health and human health,” said Andreasen.