Was there one professor who inspired you or maybe opened up a new career path to you that changed your life?
Faculty chairs and professorships at OSU’s Center for Veterinary Health Sciences:

• encourage excellence in teaching and scholarship
• are distinctive faculty positions that strengthen scholarship in teaching, research, and service
• enhance the recruitment of outstanding scholars.

The Opportunity
Take advances in basic medical research.  Thanks to endowed chairs the veterinary center is making major advances in basic and applied lung biology research that investigates pulmonary functions, pulmonary diseases, and the effects of environmental factors on both while training the next generation of lung biologists.  

Another lab plays a major role in the Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases program that is currently evolving throughout the world by developing new generation antimicrobials that can be used against bioterrorism pathogens and emerging infectious agents.

And down the corridor, research from the Neurotoxicology Laboratory has directly influenced regulatory issues pertaining to pesticides and children’s health.  

In the agricultural community, endowed chairs support food animal research.  Studies focus on:

• bovine respiratory disease, a major problem for cattle owners costing up to $200 million in losses annually
• identifying the interactions of viruses and bacteria
• identify emerging viruses
• diagnostic tests, development of effective bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) vaccines and biosecurity measures to prevent exposure to BVDV
• tick-transmitted diseases in cattle and the development of vaccines to prevent such diseases.

For the pet lovers, endowed chairs support:

• the latest surgical techniques to minimize patient trauma
• parasitology research aimed at identifying parasites and better ways to protect dogs and cats from life threatening diseases.

The Investment
A faculty chair is created through a minimum total endowment of $1 million.  A Professorship is created through a minimum total endowment of $500,000.  Support allows faculty members to pursue scholarly activities, which directly impact the quality of academic programs.

Get Involved
Endowed positions are great recruitment tools to bring in nationally recognized faculty leaders and can be utilized to advance the current work of preeminent scientists, support visiting professors and nurture promising junior faculty members.  Dollars can also be directed toward the purchase of vitally needed research equipment and/or materials.  Endowed Chairs provide training for veterinary students and residents in specific areas of animal medicine with a focus given to teaching, clinical research and clinical diagnostics.

“The support made possible by the Sitlington Endowment has made a substantial impact on my own research career and has helped to further the development of toxicology research and, more broadly, biomedical research programs at OSU.  Results from the Neurotoxicology Laboratory, made possible by this support, have impacted the federal regulation of pesticides to protect children’s health as well as strategies for protecting our soldiers against chemical weapons.” – Carey Pope, Ph.D., head of the Department of Physiological Sciences, Sitlington Chair in Toxicology

“The Endowed Chair I hold provides me with research funds that support resident research training and allows me to pursue continuing education for my professional growth.  It also provides start up funds for larger, more extensive research projects.  The focus is in small animal orthopedics but other allied areas of research can also be pursued—all for the improvement of animal health care.” – Mark Rochat, DVM, MS, Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons, Professor, Small Animal Surgery, Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, Cohn Family Chair