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We are very excited to share a guest post written by Joseph Hicks, a
student who attended the AVMA Convention and LGVMA National Meeting this
summer. If you have any experiences or events at your school you'd like
us to share email us at broadspectrumoutreach@gmail.com.
Thanks Joe for sharing this wonderful experience!
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Let’s start with some introductions,
shall we? I’m Joseph Hicks, a third year
vet student at Texas A&M University and president of my school’s chapter of
the Lesbian and Gay Veterinary Medical Association. This summer our dean Dr. Eleanor Green was
generous enough to fund my trip (along with two other A&M representatives)
to San Diego to attend the AVMA Convention and the LGVMA Annual Meeting. Let me back up though and explain a bit.
First of
all, Texas A&M has had a LGVMA chapter for a few years now. The only problem: the organization had no
members or officers. Last spring when
some of the data from the AAVMC’s Climate Survey was released, our college’s
Council on Diversity and Professionalism met and discussed areas that needed
improvement in our own school. The
Council’s first action after reviewing the data was to invite Dr. Mike Chaddock
from the AAVMC to speak on sexual diversity in our profession. Inspired by his talk and emboldened by our
administration’s obvious support of these issues, the Texas A&M LGVMA
chapter was reborn.
When John
Scroggs, Chief of Staff of our college and advisor to the organization,
proposed that a couple of the officers attend the LGVMA Annual Meeting at the
AVMA Convention, I immediately recognized this great opportunity. This would be a chance to meet the leaders on
a national level with whom I had been in contact when trying to get our chapter
back on track. It would be a source of
inspiration for the officers and our members and a method to get ideas for what
our chapter could do here at A&M.
So with the
financial support of Dean Eleanor Green and the school administration, John
Scroggs, Elise Jemmott (secretary of our new chapter) and I headed to San
Diego. After settling into our hotel
rooms, we headed to our first event, the LGVMA Annual Meeting. Here we not only covered the usual business
of budgets and board members, but we also discussed current LGBT issues in our
profession, new ideas to get members more involved and how to keep a group like
this connected. Dean Green, John, Elise
and I all helped to describe to the veterinarians, students and technicians in
the room what we were doing at Texas A&M to promote LGBT issues and diversity. (Yes, you read that correctly. The dean of Texas A&M’s vet school
attended the LGVMA Annual Meeting.) I
left the meeting feeling energized and excited for the rest of the convention.
Saturday
and Sunday were spent in CE seminars, browsing the exhibit hall and working the
LGVMA booth. During this time we met and
got to know veterinarians and vet students from across the nation. As Sunday night was to be my last in San
Diego, the LGVMA General Meeting that evening wrapped up my experience at the
AVMA Convention. Brad Sears of the
Williams Institute spoke on current studies in LGBT demographics, legal issues
and the community’s economic value. I
think many in attendance were surprised with some of the numbers and figures he
produced. The highlight of the night for
me, though, was when Dean Eleanor Green received the LGVMA’s Achievement Award
for her support of the LGBT community at Texas A&M.
As the weekend progressed, I soon
became accustomed to a certain look of astonishment fellow convention-goers
gave whenever any of us from Texas A&M explained our situation. Not only had our administration offered
financial support to get our LGVMA chapter started and for officers to attend
the LGVMA Annual Meeting, but the Dean herself attended both LGVMA events while
at the AVMA convention. And the words
these incredulous listeners always sputtered?
“And you’re from Texas?!” Those words always filled me with pride and
joy. Yes, we’re from Texas.
