Virginia Tech has named three final candidates for its search for dean of the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine (VMRCVM) and has scheduled campus interviews for each of them.

The interviews will include an open forum at which each candidate will speak on the topic “The Role of the College of Veterinary Medicine in major land-grant research universities in the 21st Century.”

Finalists for the position are Dr. Joe N. Kornegay, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Missouri; Dr. Gerhardt G. Schurig, interim dean of Tech’s VMRCVM and professor of immunology; and Dr. Warwick A. Arden, professor and head of the Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Interviews will begin with Kornegay April 18-22 with his forum presentation scheduled on April 19. Schurig’s interview will be held April 25-29 with his forum presentation on April 26. Arden will be interviewed May 2-6 and will make his forum presentation on May 3.

Each open forum will be held from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in the VMRCVM College Center, Phase III. Candidates also will visit the VMRCVM Avrum Gudelsky Veterinary Center at the University of Maryland and the VMRCVM’s Marion DuPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg, Va.

“I encourage the entire university community to attend these open forums. The College of Veterinary Medicine will play a critical role as the university moves toward its goal of becoming one of the nation’s top institutions of higher education, so the leadership of that college is very important. We would value input from faculty, staff, and students as we go through this phase of the selection process,” said Mark G. McNamee, provost and vice president for academic affairs.

Joe N. Kornegay

Dean of Veterinary Medicine since 1998, Kornegay joined the faculty at the University of Missouri (MU) at Columbia in 1994 as chair of the Department of Medicine and Surgery and director of the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. He also has been an investigator at the Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center since 1994. He was on the faculty of the College of Veterinary Medicine at North Carolina State University before moving to Missouri.

Kornegay’s clinical interests include most aspects of veterinary neurology and neurosurgery, and his research focuses on a canine model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He has written or co-written more than 150 scientific papers, abstracts, and book chapters, and three textbooks. Active in continuing education, he has made almost 200 presentations to professional groups.

While at University of Missouri, Kornegay has served on a number of councils and committees and was interim co-director of the University Cancer Center. He currently chairs the MU-Columbia Planning and Design Construction Advisory Council and serves on the Academic Cabinet of the MU-Columbia European Union Center and the Board of the Missouri Innovation Center.

Kornegay is a diplomat and former president of the neurology specialty of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine. He has won several teaching awards, including the Norden Distinguished Teacher Award. Other honors include the Bourgelat Award from the British Small Animal Veterinary Association, the Pfizer Award for Research Excellence, and NC State’s Outstanding Extension Service Award.

A native of North Carolina, Kornegay is a graduate of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University. After three years in private practice, he completed separate residencies in neurology and pathology at the University of Georgia, where he earned a master’s degree in anatomy and a Ph.D. in pathology.

Gerhardt G. Schurig

Schurig has served as interim dean of Virginia Tech’s veterinary medicine college since October 2003. He joined the faculty in 1978 as assistant professor of veterinary science and moved through the ranks to become professor and head of the Department of Veterinary Biosciences in 1986. The following year, he was named director of the Center for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases, a position he held until 1994. In 1996, he assumed duties as director of the college’s International Program and director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Veterinary Education in Management and Public Health. In 2001, he was named the college’s associate dean for research and graduate studies, and in July 2003, he became interim director of the university’s new Institute for Biomedical and Public Health Sciences.

A professor and veterinary immunologist in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology, Schurig invented the RB-51 vaccine, adopted in 1996 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as the official vaccine for bovine Brucellosis. He holds three patents.

Schurig has presented keynote talks and seminars throughout the world and has published more than 90 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He is a member of numerous professional societies and has served on many national and international committees. He has received a number of major teaching and research awards, including the 1986 Beecham Award for Research Excellence.

A native of Chile, Schurig studied chemical engineering for one year at the University of Concepcion before transferring to the University of Chile to major in veterinary medicine. He conducted his graduate work at Cornell University, where he received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in immunology and pathogenic bacteriology. He spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Veterinary Science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Warwick A. Arden

Arden has headed veterinary clinical medicine at the University of Illinois-Champaign since 2000. Before that, he spent 10 years at the University of Kentucky where he worked first as a senior clinical research associate in the Divisions of Cardiothoracic and General Surgery in the College of Medicine’s Department of Surgery. In 1993, he received a joint appoint as assistant professor of surgery and assistant professor of physiology and biophysics and was promoted in 1998 to associate professor of surgery and physiology and director of the Surgical Research Program. He began teaching in 1983 in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Michigan State University.

Arden began his professional career in 1982 as an intern in surgery at the Rural Veterinary Center in the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the University of Sydney (Australia) before spending a year as staff veterinarian in a veterinary hospital.

Active in a number of professional organizations, Arden has been a reviewer for several professional journals and studies. He has authored or co-authored articles for more than 40 scientific publications, has written two book chapters and several monographs, has given numerous invited presentations, and has made scientific presentations throughout the country and abroad. He also has served on numerous committees at the universities where he has worked

A native of Australia, Arden earned his Bachelor of Veterinary Science (the U.S. equivalent of a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine) and a diploma in veterinary clinical studies at the University of Sydney, where he also did an internship in veterinary surgery. He did a residency in large animal surgery at Michigan State University, where he also earned a master’s degree. He received board certification in veterinary surgery from the American College of Veterinary Surgeons and earned a Ph.D. in physiology and biophysics at the University of Kentucky.

Additional information about the candidates is available online by clicking on “Searches in Progress” at www.provost.vt.edu.

The Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine (VMRCVM) is a two-state, three-campus professional school operated by the land-grant universities of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and the University of Maryland at College Park. Its flagship facilities, based at Virginia Tech, include the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, which treats more than 40,000 animals annually. The VMRCVM annually enrolls approximately 500 Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and graduate students, is a leading biomedical and clinical research center, and provides professional continuing education services for veterinarians practicing throughout the two states.

Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become the largest university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech’s eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top 30 research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 170 academic degree programs.

Share this story