Mel Gallant

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Slide - 50 Years, 50 Voices - Mel Gallant - 0:00
So, my name is Mel Gallant, I was the assistant dean for administration and
finance at the Atlantic Veterinary College, from 1984—this was a couple
of years before any students were accepted—until I retired in 2007, so
I’ve been retired now for about a dozen years. 


Slide - Introducing the Atlantic Veterinary College - 0:25
Prior to the agreements being signed in 1983, the University of Prince
Edward Island was essentially a small, liberal arts university, and people
liked that it was a small liberal arts university with a tradition of
teaching. There was some research being done—some people were doing
world-class research, but many people were not heavily involved in
research, their priority was the teaching aspect and there was some
community service but not extensive. So, all of a sudden, there were these
discussions, about bringing in a large professional school to this small,
liberal arts—primarily—teaching university, and that kind of changed is
significant, it’s gonna have a major impact on the culture of the place,
and people were concerned—and people were perhaps legitimately
concerned—because there is no question that effect was felt. There were
still a lot of dissenting voices, a lot of people who were very concerned
that the university, not be, you know, the tail of the veterinary college
not wag the university dog, they may not have put it in those words but
that was the concern, they didn’t want the veterinary college to
overwhelm the university culture.


Slide - Resolving the Issues - 2:08
But, you know, within the university senate, and perhaps at the board
level, there were other issues that had to be resolved—particularly at
the senate—I guess there was the question of the academic programs, the
senate, of course, has to approve all university programs, and so that
would be one area that was a learning curve there, and I mentioned the
board too—also at the board level, there were a number of our salaries
that wouldn’t fit onto the university’s salary scale, and so the board
had to approve some higher salaries, and that would be a bone of contention
for some faculty members and they, had these hiccups—these difficult
areas, had to be resolved over time, and of course they were, perhaps
slowly but surely, more people became, perhaps, resigned to the fact that
the vet college was there, and that you may as well make use of it, and I
think, you know, over a period of time people grew up to be proud to what
the vet college was achieving—the veterinary college was making a
difference in the larger community of veterinary medicine, like in
contributions to agriculture, to fisheries—these things became known to
the university campus people, you know, and they took some responsibility
for that, took some pride in that as well, so I think in spite of the fact
that it was almost inevitable that people would resist change, I think that
over a period of time, the transition has been fairly smooth overall, and
now I feel that there’s a very good relationship between the Vet
college—which is essentially just a faculty of the university—but it’
s no longer perhaps seen as that overwhelming presence that was
intimidating to some of the other smaller faculties, now it’s more part
of the family, and I think that things are a lot smoother than what they
had been on the onset.


Slide - Early days of the AVC - 4:27
In those early months and years, like in addition to having to recruit
faculty and support staff, we had to negotiate, in a sense, with the
university, because we had a number of expenditures that were going to have
to be incurred by the university on our behalf, so we had to end up paying
for those—the University was funded, of course, by one province, where as
we were funded by four provinces—so then, that involved some discussions,
and of course, they were always a little...—they could become a little
complex, they weren’t always simple. And then in addition to recruiting,
and negotiating with the university, there was also the whole question of
accreditation. We had to prepare the accreditation documents, which were
quite rigorous and complex, and we were very few people to do a lot of
work, so we spent long, long hours here. Reg Thomson, the original dean,
Dr. Thomson was an indefatigable man—he was unbelievable—he would work
here seven days a week and typically spend probably 12, or 13, or 14 hours
here. He’d go home, after working a full day—he’d go home for
supper—have a quick little nap, and then come back, and work here until
maybe 11 o’clock, 12 o’clock, he’d do that just about every night and
it was unbelievable. So, he led by example and the people who came here,
when you consider faculty, who have tenure at other veterinary colleges
like in Canada or in the United States, they are—they had to be
entrepreneurial in their approach to their career, whenever they decided
that they would come here. This was an unknown quantity, and so, the people
who came here were—by enlarge—risk-takers, and we did very, very
well—if you look at our early history, we had a lot more winners than
people who were, perhaps, not quite so productive—we had a lot of very,
very productive people here, and got this place off to a roaring start.


Slide - Building a class & Building a building - 6:43
As the college grew, as the faculty came on board and the students were
first accepted in 1986—Because or first graduating class was in 1990—so
we had, I believe, it was 52 students, either 50 or 52 students in that
first year, and the agreement—the 4-party agreement—stipulated how many
students would come from each of the four atlantic provinces, and then
there were international students accepted to fill out the class. Once we
had our first class in place, the construction was still going—that was
one thing I never mentioned earlier, I said we were recruiting people, we
were negotiating with the university, we were looking after
accreditation—but we were also at the same time building a building, that
building wasn’t done yet—it was built in what they call a
‘fast-tracking’, the method, and my understanding of it is that what
you do is, you decide on the external perimeter, so you pour your concrete
for the external base, but you’re still negotiating, and talking and
deciding what you’re going to do inside of that. And so it’s quite the
process, and the project manager was Jim Johnson, a wonderful
engineer—the late Jim Johnson, unfortunately he passed away—but he and
his team really did a bang-up job, they came in on budget and on time, so I
mean, they were really to be commended. It had never been—a Veterinary
College had never been constructed that quickly in the history of North
America, or at least in the recent history of North America, so it was
quite a project. After that first class arrived here, and our faculty were
here teaching, they had to make do with various locations on campus, and in
the building—I mean, there were some facilities available in the
building, and they were used for multi-purposes—but not everything was in
place, so, in some instances the students had to go around wearing hard
hats, it was quite a time.


Slide - Dr. Reginald Thomson - 9:01
I was blessed, I was very fortunate, in having worked with four
extraordinary people, as these. The initial dean was Dr. Reg Thomson, and I
mentioned earlier how hard the man worked, and how inspiring he was, he saw
a problem, never as an obstacle or an impediment, it was just a question of
a nuisance that he had to address. If there were obstacles—even large
ones—he’d always have faith that he would get to the other side, he
never questioned that, like, this is where we are going, so we have to get
there, so if there was a problem, well, how do we solve the problem? But we
are going ‘there’, we are not going to be derailed by this problem. He
had that faith and boy was that ever powerful. So, Dr. Thomson was the
initial dean and I think that I speak for a lot of people when I say he was
a true inspiration.


Slide - Dr. Brian Hill - 10:06
Dr. Hill served for two years as the interim dean. He had a very good
relationship with the president—with Dr. Elliot—and so, Dr. Hill was
able to get the university to agree, to allow us to set up a bit of a fund,
which I refer to colloquially, as our ‘savings account’, when we were
unable—at that time in veterinary, medical education in North America,
there were several shortages—and so we weren’t always successful in
hiring faculty at the rate that we needed them, and so we had to get in
temporary people and make do here and there, and other people would take on
extra duties, and so on—so it was difficult. But, it saved us some cash,
and so, the university agreed—with the province’s permission by the
way—but the university agreed for us to set up a fund and we were able to
accumulate some money over a period of two years or three years—or four
years—and that money, therefore, was able to be used over a period of
years—it was interest bearing, and we were able to benefit from the
interest and we used those funds for special expenditures—we needed
equipment for our diagnostic labs, or we needed equipment for our
hospitals—and so for these kinds of extraordinary expenditures, when we
didn’t have sufficient money in the operating budget, we would dip into
our ‘savings accounts’ and that would help finance some of these
things. That was an achievement of Dr. Hills, for which I was grateful.


Slide - Dr. Lawrence Heider - 11:43
Our next ‘permanent’ dean was Dr. Larry Heider, he came here from Ohio
State. Larry Heider was a US citizen, so he came here to this Canadian
institution and I’ll give him credit, he took probably six months to
absorb the culture—I mean, he was really busy during that six month
period—but there was a change subsequent to that, he took a more
leadership role, in his earlier months, I think he was absorbing the
culture; he was learning about UPEI; he was learning about Canada; he was
learning about the different culture from where he had come, and I think
after six months, you could almost see the change in his attitude, now he
would say: “Okay, here’s what we need to do” or “Here’s what we
are going” or something—he certainly was a strong leader, Larry was a
very strong leader—under his tutelage, while Larry was dean, we had a
number of institutes, you know, set up, like the Lobster Science
Centre...—a variety of different institutes that would conduct research,
and provide service to the industries, and yet be revenue generating, so
they were very entrepreneurial, and a lot of our faculty had that
entrepreneurial spirit, as I mentioned early. And so, a variety of
different institutes and centers were established under his leadership.


Slide - Dr. Tim Ogilvie & The AVC Vet Camp - 13:24
The fourth dean that I worked with was Dr. Tim Ogilvie, and Tim Ogilvie was
originally from Ontario but he married a local girl—He practiced in the
Kensington area as a veterinarian early in his career, married a local girl
and pursued his studies and beyond that, he also became the province of
Prince Edward Island provincial Veterinarian, but then he came here as a
faculty member in health management, and taught in the large animal health
management department, and eventually became department chair and then
became dean, and so when he was dean—during his tenure as dean, we had a
variety of different successes, one of which was actually named after him
‘Dr Tim Ogilvie Summer Camp’, I believe it's called Summer Camp, it's
the camp for veterinary students—for young people who are interested in
veterinary medicine, I should say, and who may want to pursue a career as
veterinarians, and who have an opportunity to be exposed to the profession.
Some of them of course would be turned off and would then immediately
pursue other pursuits and that's a good thing, and then others will just
reinforce their interest in veterinary medicine, so this camp is conducted
every year with the full support of the faculty and staff, and they
participate, and it would never be successful without them, and the
students are heavily involved as well—it’s really a success story and
so that was one of the achievements of Dr. Ogilvie, but perhaps the
largest—the crowning achievement—that he had was a major expansion to
our physical plant.


Slide - AVC Expansion - 15:31
But the expansion was a tremendous opportunity, and Dr. Ogilvie played a
leading role on the national level, basically the deans of the four
veterinary colleges in Canada, had recognized the infrastructures of the
Veterinary Colleges were wanting; were being neglected; weren’t getting
the re-investment required, and yet the veterinary colleges played a key
role in a variety of zoonotic and other diseases—played a key role in
human health because of the close proximity of a variety of animal diseases
and human diseases—people can get sick from animals, and animals can get
sick from people—and so, the veterinarians of the veterinary colleges,
the deans of the veterinary colleges, presented this issue to the federal
government and over a period of time, and that was a lot of back and forth
and negotiations and discussions and so on, but eventually, they received a
major vote of confidence, from the federal government and from the
provincial governments, in support of an expansion and in upgrading of
their facilities, and so, this was a major event that Dr. Ogilvie played a
key role in seeing this happen—he and his three colleagues at the other
veterinary colleges pulled off something very, very—they were very
successful in this undertaking.


Slide - AVC Support Staff - 17:26
In the dean’s office, the continuity, of course, was provided by the
support staff and right from the beginning we had very strong support from
our support staff—Initially, Cora Conrad was the administrative
assistant, and then Melita McDougall—Melita McDougall is still in that
position, she has been there probably since...—I’m guessing here the
year—but I’m guessing it would be the late 80’s? So she’s been
there for a long time, so Melita played a pivotal role in the
administration of the dean’s office and people liked Melita, over the
years, we were just tremendously supportive and so tremendously productive
that that office really was a pleasure to work in, and I believe, was very,
very productive.


Slide - The Eugene F. Whelan Green Hat Award - 18:36
So in the first year, Jim Lee, and Eugene Whelan, were awarded the green
hat award, and over the ensuing years, the department chairs or former
deans were awarded or granted that award, so when I got it in 2010, it was
quite a surprise to me—it’s quite an honor, as I said, it’s the
highest award that the Veterinary College bestows and it’s intended to
recognize someone who has made a significant contribution to the veterinary
profession in Atlantic Canada, that’s basically what it was.


Slide - Final Thoughts - 19:19
In addition to working with four tremendous deans—really superior
people—I was fortunate in that the faculty and the support staff and the
students at the veterinary college, these are all people who have made
tremendous contributions; they were engaged, professional, productive
people—I couldn’t have asked to work with a better group of people—I
really, really enjoyed my time here.