AAVMC's CIVME has published a series of informative newsletters over the past several months focused on highlighting educational systems and organizations across various regions of the globe. Starting with this newsletter, we would like to feature people from specific regions who engage in and exemplify what it means to be a veterinary educator. One of CIVME's main strategic goals is to create a network of educators across the globe and the start of this engagement process is raising awareness of each other's existence!

Of particular interest are those individuals who are working to improve veterinary education beyond their own institutions, and particularly working internationally with other collaborators. This new feature is intended to raise awareness of educators and researchers who are making things happen and CIVME would like to help connect you (as global educators) with one another. CIVME would be happy to hear from you if you know of people who should be profiled in your region, so that others are aware of the really good work they are doing!

Dr. Jennifer Hodgson is the Associate Dean for Professional Programs at the Virginia Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine (VMCVM), and a professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences. Dr. Hodgson is the recipient of the 2017 AAVMC Distinguished Teacher Award, presented by Zoetis. Dr. Hodgson's varied career shows how an educator develops and grows from someone who starts to explore the incorporation of scholarly teaching into their everyday work, to someone who later becomes a champion for veterinary education in their own institution and impacts global education with efforts that reach far beyond their own region in the world. Please continue.

Dr. Martin Cake is an award-winning and passionate veterinary educator. He graduated from Murdoch University in 1994 and initially worked in small animal and emergency practice in England and Perth (where he now lives with a wife, three kids and a dog). Martin primarily teaches veterinary and comparative anatomy, but has a major influence in the Veterinary Professional Life program at Murdoch University in Western Australia, where he consciously changed his research focus from biomedical research to veterinary education. His experience in preparing veterinary graduates for professional life has extended to the highly successful VetSet2Go program to determine factors affecting employability and success as veterinarians. Please continue.

Dr. Rosanne Taylor is one of the foremost veterinary educators in Australia, and someone that CIVME was keen to profile as a great example of an individual working to improve undergraduate education over her whole career. Following the early career undertaking of a PhD in neurology, Rosanne returned to the University of Sydney in 1994 to teach veterinary physiology and cell biology. She completed a Graduate Certificate in higher education and has been recognized as a leader in veterinary education ever since. Rosanne was the chair of the Sydney University Veterinary Science Faculty for Teaching and Learning Committee, during which she implemented a new curriculum, later moving on to Pro Dean and then served two terms as Dean in her institution. Please continue.

Kenneth D. Royal, PhD, MSEd, is Assistant Professor of Educational Assessment & Outcomes at the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine, and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. Ken's scholarship is dedicated to the broad study of education research and medical education, and he provides a great example of how a non-DVM can become very engaged and experienced in veterinary education. He is the author of more than 170 peer-reviewed articles, serves as editor-in-chief or associate editor of four academic journals, and reviews for more than 20 medical and education journals. Please continue.  

The core council members of CIVME were present in Mexico City during mid-December 2017 for a face-to-face meeting to develop and implement strategic initiatives for the upcoming year. We were graciously hosted by Dr. Francisco Trigo, core council representative for Central, and South America, as well as the Caribbean. We visited the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) and were privileged to be provided with a tour of the wonderful facilities by Dr. Francisco Suarez and his faculty team. Dr. Andy Maccabe also joined the group for meetings bringing perspective from the Board of Director's about the future vision and development of CIVME. 

CIVME is one of the first groups of its kind to be working at the grassroots level to connect educators across the veterinary medicine globe. The council is working to raise the profile of veterinary education and scholarship amongst educators, and providing them with a platform to engage and share with one another. CIVME members have identified three strategic areas of growth for CIVME in 2018:

1. To encourage collaboration between educators to share best practices and ideas within and across regions.
2. To contact, interact, and engage with individuals to create a network of global educators, with an emphasis on growing regional foci.
3. To stimulate new ideas and educational research projects, as well as provide an outlet for sharing these with one another.

At the March 2018 meeting in Washington D.C., CIVME members are laying out initiatives to move forward with these strategic areas. On the agenda will be:

• Review and awarding of micro-grants supporting educational research
• Discussions regarding how best to resource accreditation support for countries in need
• Implementation of educational webinars and research days to disseminate knowledge
• Establishment of global and regional communities to allow sharing of teaching ideas and materials
• Distribution of information about veterinary education around the globe

CIVME is trying to determine the best way to serve the needs of international veterinary educators as we begin to grow and define our role in helping others. We wish to gain more information about how we might work with you, assist you in your veterinary education needs, and how we might better connect all of you together. To that end, we will be distributing a short six question survey in the coming weeks. We would greatly appreciate it if you would complete it and tell us what you need from CIVME!

We are hoping you will be able to join us for an in depth and interesting discussion to compare and contrast veterinary education practices around the globe! CIVME will be presenting a panel discussion session at the Annual AAVMC Conference on Sunday March 4th from 10:30 am until noon. The session will include members of CIVME, representing several regions from across the globe, as panel members. The discussions will center on three major themes: accreditation practices, outcomes-based education, and program integration of knowledge, clinical skills, and soft skills (those critical to employability). Come learn more about the places and programs you don't know anything about!

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INVEST 2018 - Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, Tennessee, USA