Having successfully launched a new, innovative curriculum for veterinary students last fall, the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine is hosting a first-of-its-kind international forum this month to share lessons learned and to foster collaboration on curriculum development among the world’s veterinary institutions.

More than 20 representatives from 12 U.S. veterinary colleges will attend the event July 28-29 in Raleigh, North Carolina, with more than 80 more participating virtually from across the world, including from Sri Lanka, Australia and Hong Kong. There are fewer than 50 accredited veterinary colleges worldwide, with more than 30 in the United States. Accredited schools are required to comprehensively review their curriculum every seven years.

Jesse Watson, Ed.S, director of curriculum and educator development at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine, proposed the event after several veterinary colleges sought support ranging from quick consults to full development planning assistance.

“The veterinary education community doesn’t necessarily have the habit of talking to each other about how to build curriculum or how to coordinate it,” Watson says. “But because we’ve been a leader in this area, we have had an increasing number of requests coming our way, saying, ‘How did you guys do it?’ or ‘Can you fly out and talk to us?’”

NC State was an early adopter of the American Association of Veterinary Medical College’s move to Competency Based Veterinary Education and debuted its new curriculum last fall with the start of the DVM Class of 2028. The curriculum — the result of five years of collaboration among faculty, staff and clinicians — restructured the course system into five focused themes, called “threads,” that integrate material across years and species, encourage more professional development and provide time for focused clinical skills practice.

Dr. Katie Sheats, now associate dean of Professional Education and Admissions at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine, was a leading architect of the new curriculum. She, Sherry Clouser of the University of Georgia, Nicki Wise from Clemson University and Emily Erwin from Louisiana State University have worked with Watson to plan the upcoming Curriculum Forum.

Clemson is one of about a dozen universities in the United States that are in the process of starting veterinary colleges.

“It was really important to us to invite new schools as well, because this is a time of big change in veterinary education, and that change creates uncertainty,” Sheats says. “But what we are certain about is that the more that we share with each other, connect and network, the better off we’ll all be.”

Sheats says when she was in the thick of curriculum redesign, she spent a lot of time on other schools’ websites trying to learn about their curricula, with mixed success.

“We want to normalize sharing, and we are eager to tell others about what has worked well and what hasn’t,” she says. “Then mistakes aren’t repeated, and we get to emulate and build on things that have been done well.” 

Other universities are looking to NC State because the veterinary college completely redesigned its curriculum structure, which most schools don’t usually attempt, Watson says.

“Honestly, it’s usually more gradual and happens with multiple changes over 10 years,” Watson says. “But we got about as close to an entire ‘pick it all up, then put something different back down’ change as you could get in one move.”

Sheats adds, “While maintaining pretty high satisfaction with the whole process!”

Watson says the event is more about the “how” of implementing a new curriculum than the “what” and will include four keynote speakers: Dr. Joie Watson from the University of California, Davis, on “Catalysts for Curricular Change: Integrate, Activate, Educate,” Dr. Sarah Baillie from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom on “Managing Major Curriculum Reviews,” Dr. India Lane from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, on “Change Management and Consensus Building” and Dr. Jeremy Redmond from Louisiana State University on “Challenges and Opportunities for Implementing the Competency-Based Veterinary Education Framework.”

In addition to hearing the presentations, participants will spend about half of the time talking, sharing and collaborating, with facilitated breakout rooms for those attending virtually. Sheats and Watson say they are indebted to NC State College of Veterinary Medicine colleagues in the Academic Technologies and Curriculum and Instructional Design areas who have signed on to facilitate groups both in person and virtually during the event.

For Watson, his top piece of advice for colleges trying to craft a new curriculum is to build an implementation team with intentionality that represents all perspectives within your college

“It’s the human organization more than anything,” he says. “Who are your people involved? Who are you putting on your teams? Are you making sure you’ve got enough perspectives and representations across your specialty areas? Are you identifying the roadblocks? Are you identifying the champions? Are you empowering them and guiding them to be good participants?”

Being a champion of the changes was a major role for Sheats as the revision process played out.

“I spent a lot of time talking to people,” she says. “If somebody had a concern with the new curriculum, we would find time to sit down and talk about it. That’s the biggest difference-maker — when people feel heard.”