WSU VETERINARY DEAN ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT
After serving Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine for more
than a decade in the position, Dean Bryan Slinker has announced his plan to step down at the end of 2019.
The University will launch an international search for a new dean late this spring.
“I have very mixed emotions about this decision,” said Dr. Slinker, a double alumnus of the college he oversees. “I have dedicated my career to life sciences,
receiving both my DVM and Ph.D. degrees from WSU in this college, and I am a
Coug through and through.
“This college has been a very important part of me for most of my adult life,
both as a student and as a faculty member in the Department of Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience since 1992.”
During his tenure, Dr. Slinker has seen the college through its greatest period of physical
growth and expansion and increased student population at the doctor of veterinary
medicine, graduate, and the undergraduate levels. He oversaw the move of the School
for Molecular Biosciences to the veterinary college, the build out of the Paul G.
Allen School for Global Animal Health, and the opening and occupation of two of the
University’s newest science buildings. The college also secured an appropriation
of $23 million last legislative session that will allow the Washington Animal Disease
Diagnostic Laboratory to move to a state of the art facility being added to the Paul
G. Allen Center for Global Animal Health.
Under Dr. Slinker’s leadership, the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine is now ranked first
among the nation’s veterinary colleges in attracting USDA funding and third
among the nation’s veterinary colleges for attracting overall federal research
funding, a key component of its more than $80 million annual budget.
“Federal research funding is first and foremost a mechanism for returning
federal tax dollars paid by our citizens back to the state. Second, it is how we
attract and retain the best scientists, teachers, staff, and students to both attain
an internationally recognized education and to advance the care and understanding we
have for all animals to benefit the world.
“It has been my great honor and pleasure to serve as dean of my alma mater, and I am grateful
for the good fortune to work with so many incredible people across our college,
throughout WSU, and among our many alumni and friends.
“I have made no firm decisions as to what I will do after stepping down,
but I do have several hypotheses to test about how much fishing I can stand, among other things.” |
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