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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 5, 2003)
i 12 AND GET or your TEXTBOOKS 3 CONVENIENT LOCATIONS: NORTHGATE SOUTHGATE WOLF PEN PLAZA IF YOU ORDER Aggieland and wi campus next fall you can have it ma your yearbook fo school year mail room 015 Reed Building or telephi (credit cards only) a.m. and 4:30 p through Friday an mailing and handlin An equal access/equal opportunity university. e.edu/GradSchool kl ij i ¥ ' SllUL * Bob Schneid In collaboration w/ i ittic of the Bands Hall * American Wedding at & 9:IS pm in Rudder Theater $1 w/ TAMU ID in collaboration w/ MSC Film Society * Aggie Jeopardy Finals in the MSC Flagroom * Free activities in the MSC Basement: pool, arts & crafts bowling, and dance dance revolution In collaboration w/ Cepheid Variable Free deer prizes at 11:30 PM in n$C Ftegreem. Must be present te win! I FREED ’$ Pizza 979.845.1515 aggienights.tamu.edu X- For special needs, please contact us O- three days prior to tfye event at 845-1515. Friday, December 5, 2003 THE A woman’s work More women are joining in veterinary media Transp IVeis will |o Texas 'uesday. r osed plai “When ic has the ared Jam lenerai sti at the s Chiryi Dw • KIIT oJBnalyzed Dr. Karen Fling, right, checks Dixie Worden, center, while Sophie sticks a Yoikshire turner with the help of a registered veterinary technics/ close to owner Carol Duff left, at East Lake Veterinary Hospital inD By Kristen Kauffman KRT CAMPUS DALLAS — When Karen Ring was a high school student in the late 1970s, she worked for a Dallas veterinarian cleaning cages for an hourly wage. She had dreamed of becoming a vet since the second grade, after being encouraged by a veterinary' nurse who helped care for her family’s pet beagle. Lady. She remembers looking at the doctor’s diplomas and photos on the wall as she worked. “There were only two or three faces of women in the class pic tures,” she says. Today, in Fling's East Lake Veterinary' Hospital, a dramatical ly different class picture hangs on the wall. By the time Fling grad uated from Texas A&M's College of Veterinary Medicine in 1987, she says, close to half the students were women. In 2003, A&M reports that about 80 percent of its vet school graduates are women. The national average is about 70 percent. In a reflection of the trend toward more female veterinari ans, Bonnie Beaver, a nationally noted animal behaviorist and Texas A&M professor of .small animal medicine and surgery, was elected 2004 president of the American Veterinary Medical Association last summer. She is only the second woman ever to fill the post for the 140-year-old organization, which represents nearly 70,000 U.S. vets, almost half of whom are women. But in 1970, Beaver, a gradu ate of the University of Minnesota's veterinary' school, was one of just two women in her class, and one of 500 female vet erinarians nationwide. As far back as she can remem ber. as a little girl in rural western Minnesota near Maple Plain, she wanted to be a veterinarian. The fact that there were almost no other women in the field didn’t even occur to her, she says. Like many women entering non traditional professions during that time, she faced gender dis crimination — not so much from clients, she says, but from other veterinarians. “1 didn’t let it bother me. I wanted to be a veterinarian and had the grades to get in. and 1 had a job to do w hen 1 graduated.” she says. “I was offered significantly less pay for some jobs than my male colleagues _ that happened several times and in fact 1 was told by one that a colleague was getting more because he was mar ried and had a family.” Beaver, who once served as president of the Women’s Veterinary Association, a national organization focused on helping women become integrated into the profession, says veterinary medicine is now gender-blind. “The AVMA represents 87 percent of all veterinarians, and because of that it has to address concerns of women in the profes sion just as it has to address con cerns of men in the profession,” says Beaver. “They are about how to give the best possible service to our patients and clients.” Texas A&M graduate-: first female vet in 1966.aid! more in 1967. Stacy Ls who owns Casa Linda .Ins paces are Clinic in Dallas, reran studying alongside theuiM ty’s first female veterinana dents. He recalls some ar: ty toward them. “Anytime there’s a cl there’s always someone savs. ‘Let’s not chanee,'"s 1 .ackey. “All of us were uyii. struggle through ourselves." He is now the only: among the four vets in practice. “It just evolved. There never any move toward ta them in" on a gender basis, Lackey. While the gender shift in erinary medicine is obvious, clear is why. “We see more women in ence, we see more won* engineering,” says Beaver can’t explain that disparity r erinary medicine.” One reason may be s demographics. No longer it typical vet found practicic the farm, but in a small-r clinic in a city or town. Of ft percent of vets treating sral trials exclusively, almost hi women, whereas more percent of large-animal veterc ians are men, according IL AVMA. Beaver and Fling suggest the lifestyle of a small-! may be more attractive to wo® Fling’s practice includes veterinarians — five full-time one part-time — all of ut happen to be women. /hat we’r The pi arking re arking sj ampus. \ ave diffi Weis’ Santa tising Parad Bu By It's time to act your copy. Insi spr< P ICKING UP your 2003 Aggieland yearbook is easy. If you ordered a book, stop by Room 015 Reed McDonald Building (in the basement). Please bring your Student ID. If you did not order last year's Texas A&M University yearbook (the 2002-2003 school year), you may purchase one for $40 plus tax in Room 015 Reed McDonald. Hours: 9 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday. Cash, check, VISA, MasterCard, Discover and American Express, Aggie Bucks accepted. 2003 Aggieland The U law that Tr ade Co re gistry \ A&M off d e nts’ rig Under sued for L time are ; spammer