Page 10 - Eclipse - Autumn 2015

General news
Women in veterinary leadership
On 30th May 2015, the Women’s Veterinary Leadership Development Initiative (WVLDI) Chapter at the RVC held its inaugural conference to raise awareness of barriers to women taking up leadership roles, and how these might be overcome.
Almost 70 people attended the meeting at the RVC’s Hawkshead campus, including staff and students from the RVC and Nottingham, Bristol and Cambridge veterinary schools, together with quali ed veterinary professionals.
Anke Hendricks, Director of the BVetMed degree at the RVC explained, “The various contributions showed how still in 2015, with a majority of a female workforce in the profession, there remains a need to develop and support female leadership in veterinary business and academia. Opportunities like this
to highlight and debate these issues and encourage the next professional generation to engage with them, are an important step towards change.”
The RVC student chapter of the WVLDI hopes the meeting’s success will raise awareness of the issue of women in veterinary leadership and prompt similar events in the future. Jill Maddison,
the RVC’s Director of Continuing Professional Development and EMS, who acted as an adviser to the event commented that it ‘has the potential to effect real change that will bene t women in veterinary science and the profession as a whole.’
More information about the WVLDI and its mission and vision for the profession is available at womenveterinarians.org.
Mongolian University of Life Sciences Study Tour to the RVC Developing a veterinary curriculum and assessment process
Building on a previous visit made in 2013, a team of senior management staff including the Vice-Chancellor and Dean and Head of Curriculum Development from the Mongolian University of Life Sciences (MULS) visited LIVE (an RVC centre for excellence in teaching and learning - Linking Innovative Veterinary Educators) in May 2015 to take part in
a ve day programme led by Dr Ayona Silva Fletcher. The programme was developed to advise and assist the MULS in developing a modern curriculum and assessment process for a new vet school.
Senior staff at MULS attended a series of workshops over 5 days. They were shown teaching rooms, the hospital, teaching facilities and dissection rooms at the Hawkshead and Camden campuses and were given a tour of Boltons Park Farm.
MULS also met with many Vice-Principals and Heads of Departments from the RVC, during which time they covered various topics to
help them develop and enhance their own university, thus enabling them to develop their own vet school. Subjects covered during the programme were departmental structure, management responsibilities, entry requirements and student selection, teaching staff development, curriculum, timetabling, assessment, quality assurance, staff appraisal, policies for teaching and research and related legislation.
The programme was well received and the staff from MULS bene tted greatly from the visit and the programme. The RVC will continue in an advisory capacity in the near future, sending lecturers to Mongolia to observe and advise on the development of the School of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology (SVMB) and it is anticipated that further follow up visits and programmes will be arranged over the longer term.