NEWS RELEASE
UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH
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Sheryl and David Kerr have made a $4-million lead reward towards the brand new two-storey Medical and Surgical Studying Centre (MSLC) on the Ontario Veterinary School (OVC) to assist the infrastructure modifications made vital by the enlargement of the veterinary class.
The brand new architecturally distinctive centre will present devoted areas for college kids to follow their pre-surgical and surgical expertise, together with in specialised areas resembling dentistry and post-operative restoration. The Kerrs’ reward will title the main-floor working suite – greater than 3,300 sq ft of area that includes a number of surgical stations with state-of-the-art tables and overhead booms for instructing hands-on medical expertise.
The provincial authorities agreed to assist OVC’s proposal to graduate an extra 20 veterinary college students annually from Northern Ontario via the brand new Collaborative Physician of Veterinary Medication program – a partnership between the College of Guelph and Lakehead College – and supplied preliminary monetary assist for the brand new MSLC constructing.
Pupil recruitment from Northern Ontario is underway. For 2025 and 2026, the brand new northern cohort will start their research in Guelph, finishing all 4 years at OVC on the U of G campus. Beginning in 2027, college students will spend their first two years at Lakehead and full their second two at Guelph.
“The underlying premise is that students drawn from the North, and trained for two years in the North, would gravitate to northern practices after graduation,” says Dr. Jeff Wichtel, OVC dean.
The Kerrs met at McGill College as members of the lads’s and girls’s hockey groups. Thirty years later, their daughter Tamara performed 4 years of varsity hockey as a Gryphon. In consequence, the couple’s first reward to U of G was in assist of girls’s hockey and has since included a $50,000 scholarship endowment.
When not skating, Sheryl Kerr is a passionate equestrian. She owns Strathfield Farm in Stouffville, Ont., the place she stables her horses and leases area to Stoney Lake Equestrian – Staff Irwin Dressage.
Utilizing Equine Guelph’s neighborhood schooling platform, Sheryl Kerr accomplished programs on growing a COVID-19 response for her 150-acre farm and coaching facility, and horse welfare in Canada.
Equine Guelph is devoted to bettering the well being and well-being of horses via equine schooling and analysis for horse house owners. As a campus non-profit, it had been managing on a cost-recovery mannequin, with programs like those Sheryl accomplished priced at lower than $100. Since then, the Kerrs have offered three presents of $100,000, the newest in 2023, to assist horse schooling, communication and neighborhood outreach initiatives at Equine Guelph.
“Having learned so much myself from Equine Guelph’s online courses and newsletters, I know first-hand how much value they bring to the horse community,” Sheryl Kerr says.
The Kerrs have continued their dedication to OVC with their newest reward of $4 million for the MSLC.
“I’ve had horses all along, and I was struck by recent stories of the acute lack of equine vets in northern Ontario,” Sheryl says. “The variety of graduating veterinarians has not stored tempo with will increase in animal and pet possession and the north has been notably underserved.
“Hearing that need, we thought supporting the expansion of the veterinary college was the best use of our funds, to help graduate more vets, many of whom we hope will be willing to provide services to rural and remote areas.”
David was previously president and CEO of Noranda Inc. and a director of quite a few company and neighborhood boards.
“We understood that an ambitious plan like this would require the flexibility to respond to needs above and beyond the construction of the building,” David Kerr says. “So, $500,000 of the $4 million was designated to highest priorities to help ensure the success of this project.”
“OVC has a vision of supporting every animal, everywhere,” says Wichtel. “We’re so grateful for kind and generous people like Sheryl and David Kerr, who not only share our vision but take giant steps to help make it a reality.”
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