Letter to the Editor

They might as well just take the “V” out of Veishea. The College of Veterinary Medicine has been around a lot longer than Veishea and is what the “V” represents. Yet, it seems that the Veishea committee overlooked the “V” this year.

Veishea was created to show prospective students and the public what ISU has to offer. In keeping with tradition, the class of 2000 at the College of Veterinary Medicine was assigned the task of designing and orchestrating our Veishea Open House display. We had 1,399 people walk through our display and many told us what a great job we had done, indicating the quality of our display. We appreciated the public’s recognition of our hard work.

The public’s response enhanced our belief in Veishea, but we have a problem with the Veishea committee. Our co-chairs attended the mandatory meeting with little more than a day’s notice. They filled out all the forms in triplicate and turned them in on time. The meeting and required forms did not have much to do with our display, but meant that we could participate in the display contest in which all displays were to be judged and awarded accordingly.

During Veishea, we had a display we were very proud of, but we never saw the judges at our display. We made an effort to call the Veishea office at 4:45 p.m. on Saturday to verify that the judges had been here and were reassured that they had been by in the morning. On Monday, we called the Veishea office for the judges’ comments, as a means to improve our future Veishea displays. Unfortunately, we were informed that our display was never viewed by the judges due to lack of transportation out to our location. Yet, our location was on the suggested list of official Veishea display locations.

It was with pride that we dedicated our time to building our display for the benefit of the public. We believe our efforts were thwarted by the Veishea committee’s lack of organization and forethought. It seems to us that transportation was not a problem for 1,399 visitors, yet ironically the judging committee was stranded on main campus. Without a doubt, had we been informed of their dilemma, one of us could have supplied transportation.

If the Veishea committee does not feel the need to recognize the College of Veterinary Medicine as being a significant component of the university, maybe next year they should have “Eeishea” instead.

Andrea L. Hitch

Elizabeth Jakowiak

Michael Anderson

Dolores Costantino

Sherri Mumm

Freshmen

Veterinary Medicine