A University of Missouri graduate has given $1.4 million to the College of Engineering and $310,000 to the College of Veterinary Medicine. Ken Donohew and his wife, Ellen Kippel, have made the gifts to support diversity and shelter medicine programs.
Photos courtesy of University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine
Donohew is a 1967 industrial engineering graduate. Through their donations, Donohew and Kippel have established the Major General Jack N. Donohew Fund for Diversity and Inclusion in Engineering to honor Ken’s father. They also want to honor Donohew’s uncle, Paul Zollman, who was in the first class from the College of Veterinary medicine to graduate with a doctoral degree in 1950.
Carolyn Henry, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, says the donation will be used to finish its renovation next door to the Columbia animal shelter and give students more hands-on experience.
“They’re working with the animals, primarily from Central Missouri Humane Society but they also do work with other shelters, assessing general health care of the animals, learning about disease spread, learning about what’s unique about shelter medicine situations and then really getting the hands-on experience, especially with their spay/neuter program.”
Through the Shelter Medicine Program, which launched in 2011, students perform more than 100 surgeries each month.
Photos courtesy of University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine
“Every veterinary student completes a rotation in shelter medicine before graduation. This accounts four our graduates having performed 15 to 20 more surgeries than they did before the program started,” she says.
Henry says the donation is a big win for the students, the animals and their owners.
“We immediately make the animals more adoptable if we can get good medical care to them, but somebody’s got to pay for that, right? Unless that burdens going to be placed on the new owner of the animal or on students through tuition.”
The college has more than 1,200 vet school applicants each year and 120 are accepted. Henry says many more opportunities exist today for veterinarians.
“We’re certainly seeing more and more corporate practices popping up, some in conjunction with pet stores, some in conjunction with super stores,” says Henry. “I think the whole face of veterinary medicine is going to change dramatically over the next ten, twenty years.”
Missouri vet students spend two years in clinical rotations, which Henry says is more than a majority of schools.
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