UI VET AT 60: ON REPRESENTATION, AND WHY IT MATTERS

 

I was privileged to attend the 53rd Induction and Oath Taking Ceremony of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Ibadan, and it was a beautiful, emotional event. It got particularly tearful when the inductees were asked to bow to their parents and thank them for their labor of love over them. 

I clapped and screamed myself hoarse when the newly-minted doctors were called up to receive their awards and certificates.

At a point, I even started feeling nostalgia, despite the fact that I have, in fact, not yet graduated.

I felt some level of envy and deep admiration when the best graduating student kept being awarded with cash prizes – up to one million naira – for his academic excellence. 

Of course, he wasn’t physically present at the event. UI Vet seems to have made it a habit for their best graduating students to be enrolled in one research postgraduate program or the other in a university abroad by the time the induction ceremony is held. 

So many things happened during the event, but one thing that was noteworthy for me was physical evidence that reinforced my belief in the fact that representation matters.

There was the case of the current Dean of the faculty. Professor Olufunke Ola – Davies is an admirable woman in all aspects, and for the first time in the 60 years of its existence, the faculty had a female Dean. 

There was a segment of the program where a documentary was played for the audience to see. It was a short interview with the Dean, where she talked about the achievements of the faculty during her tenure, among other things. It was amazing to watch that, and I felt a level of pride to belong here. 

She mentioned how, being the first female Dean, she has felt the need to prove to people that women are not weak, and a woman can handle the affairs of the faculty just fine. She also talked about how she hopes that more women in the faculty are inspired by her paving the way, and that we get to have more female Deans in future.

I’d like to think that because of her, more members of the faculty have started entertaining the idea of female Deans.

Note: AVMSUI has never had a female president, but I digress. 

Another case was that of the second best graduating student achieving a remarkable feat of getting 4 out of 4 possible distinctions in her clinical year. Now, that is uncommon.

Before I learnt this, I thought it would be a pipe dream to make 4 out of 4 distinctions in clinical year. But about two people did it, and now I no longer think it’s impossible.

Also, let us reflect back to whomever the first UI Vet student was, that applied for research opportunities in Universities abroad and traveled out for a PhD before graduation. Quite a number of students have followed in his steps, and even as I write this, more students are writing applications for research grants and searching for mentors.

In life, we have ideas of things we want to achieve, but they can seem abstract, until we see someone who actually does these things.

A lot of people might have thought that the Faculty wasn’t ready for a female Dean, but Professor Olufunke Ola-Davies came, and now we know that that was untrue.

Before the first person had their parents collect their awards for them at the induction ceremony, a lot of vet students probably weren’t thinking of going into research and applying for opportunities abroad.

Representation matters, because it shows us the things that are possible, and we can be reminded that the sky is always the limit (or the starting point, if you so desire). We get to see people that come from the same places we have come from, people that we have shared experiences with achieve things we thought were just dreams. This is inspiring.

I am definitely inspired, and I love me a good “Nobody has ever done it before, so I did it” story. But most importantly, we need more “They showed me that it was possible, so I did it” stories. 

I hope that in future, more and more people are pacesetters, and that we continue to set new trends for the people coming after us to follow.