Tufts Veterinary School, Norfolk Agricultural High School combine forces

The Tufts Veterinary School and the Norfolk Agricultural High School have made official a proposed ten-year collaboration.

The collaboration is going to be a mutual exchange of resources. Among other perks, Norfolk's faculty will be granted access to the Tufts Veterinary School's library in Grafton and Tufts students and faculty will be able to more fully partake in certain Norfolk programs.

According to Associate Dean at the Tufts Vet School Joseph McManus, the two schools have been cooperating informally over the past decade but state involvement has encouraged the transformation of the collaboration into an official pairing.

The initiative behind the collaboration came from local official. "State Representative John Rogers (D-Norfolk), who is familiar with the missions of both Norfolk Aggie and Tufts Vet School, suggested that there may be mutually beneficial ways we could collaborate," McManus said.

Budgetary concerns were one of the primary reasons behind the collaboration. "Tufts receives a subsidy each year from the Commonwealth for the Vet School because there isn't a state-run vet school for Massachusetts students. Our schools were encouraged to partner so that everybody could get a lot of mileage for that subsidy," Norfolk Superintendent Dr. Angela Avery said.

Avery explained that "Tufts has offered to help us with curriculum development and professional opportunities, including the library resources. They're going to look at a first aid curriculum for our students and we're going to look at the possibility of collaborating on grants as they may come up."

Tufts Veterinary School Dean Philip Kosch said there would be a number of benefits that the official collaboration will continue to provide Tufts. "For the past 10 years, Tufts veterinary students have expanded their medical and management skills by participating in Norfolk's aviary program," he said.

Because Tufts does not have an aviary program of its own, it has used resources at Norfolk High. In reciprocation, Tufts has donated pigs to Norfolk's program, loaned equipment and supplies, and the Grafton campus has hosted the Future Farmers of America Livestock Judging Competition.

As part of the new collaboration, Tufts faculty will be giving advice on equipment and supplies as well as on budgetary concerns. "Joseph McManus has already helped us by reviewing a grant we're submitting for biotechnology," Avery said.

"We realized in addition to the things we've done we can also use other ways to have students interact," Avery added. "Tufts students always come out here to Walpole for a clinical day, and we thought of more ways our students could dialogue with Tufts students to see what it's like to actually be in a vet program."

"The folks down at Walpole are interested in providing internships for students of both schools, so we think that this is going to be a nice positive relationship," Avery said. She added that, like herself, Dean Kosch "seemed very enthusiastic about the possibilities."

At the ceremony marking this enhanced collaboration, Rep. Rogers said, "This expanded collaboration is another example of a public-private partnership that benefits both parties. We are extremely fortunate to have a veterinary school of such national and international prominence as Tufts located so closely to our own agricultural school, which also carries a reputation that is rich with excellence."