Released Oct. 26, 2007

LINCOLN, Neb. — The newly created Professional Program in Veterinary Medicine at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is celebrating receipt of its first endowed student scholarship fund.

Janet Beachler Day of Lincoln, an alumna of the UNL College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, established the endowed fund with a gift to the University of Nebraska Foundation. Annual income from the fund will be used to provide one or more scholarships to students pursuing a doctor of veterinary medicine degree.

"I am very happy to provide the scholarship and hope it helps those who one day become veterinarians," Beachler Day said. "It's important to have goals, and scholarships can definitely help make students' goals possible."

The Professional Program in Veterinary Medicine was officially launched in 2006 between UNL and Iowa State University and brings together the nation's two leading livestock producing states in addressing the region's increasing need for veterinarians.

"With the Janet Beachler Scholarship Fund, we are investing in Nebraska students pursuing careers in veterinary medicine, the University of Nebraska and the agriculture economy of the state," said David Hardin, associate dean for the program. "While state funding provides the means for a basic education, private support encourages and provides financial assistance for an exceptional education."

Beachler Day said she established the scholarship because she considered becoming a veterinarian herself but chose instead to study agricultural sciences. She added that women agriculture majors were not common in the 1950s, to the extent that her first professor thought she might be in the wrong class on her first day of school.

"My professor stood up in front of the class and said that if anyone was in the wrong place, they shouldn't be embarrassed and it would be OK to leave," she said. "Then after class, he came up to me to talk and assumed I was a farm girl. But I was actually a city girl from Chicago."

Beachler Day was the first woman initiated into UNL's Block and Bridle Club, an association of agriculture sciences students involved in promoting high academic standards and professional development opportunities. Because of this, former Block and Bridle members who go on to study veterinary medicine will be given first preference for available scholarship awards.

"Hopefully, there will be students to take advantage of it in the future," she said.

Each year up to 25 students from Nebraska will enter a four-year study of veterinary medicine and attend the first two years of the program on the UNL campus. The cooperative program is part of the university's College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources and the Departments of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, Entomology, Biochemistry and Animal Science. Students are expected to complete their final two years and receive their doctor of veterinary medicine degrees at the ISU College of Veterinary Medicine.

The University of Nebraska Foundation is a private, nonprofit corporation that has been raising private gifts to support the University of Nebraska for more than 70 years. Last year more than $87 million was provided for students, faculty, academic programs, research and for campus and building improvements. More information is available at University of Nebraska Foundation.

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Contacts: Robb Crouch, (402) 458-1142

Dan Moser, (402) 472-3007