By Donald F. Smith, DVM, DACVS
Posted January 18, 2016
Author’s Note: This is the third of six
articles honoring the centennial of Texas A&M College of Veterinary
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.
The Women who shaped the West Changed the
World is the slogan of the National
Cowgirl Hall of Fame where Dean Eleanor Green of Texas A&M University was inducted
in 2013. She shares the honor with such notables as animal welfare advocated
Temple Grandin, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and former AVMA Council on
Education member and rancher, JoAnne Smith.
Dr. Green’s career is one of firsts, serving
as the first woman department head and chair of the Department of Large Animal
Clinical Sciences at the University of Tennessee, and the first large animal
hospital director and hospital chief of staff at the University of Florida.
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| Dr. Eleanor Green, Dean of College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (Courtesy of TexasA&M University) |
A DVM from Auburn University, Dr. Green was
one of just three women in her 1973 class). She is a recognized leader in the
equine industry, having owned and shown horses most of her life, winning
circuit, state and national championships and numerous awards. She was the
first woman to officiate at a National Intercollegiate Livestock Judging
Competition, and has served on boards of various horse industry organizations. In 2008, she served as the 54th president of the American Association
of Equine Practitioners, the first woman to be elected to that position.
Dr. Green started her veterinary career as
owner-partner of a mixed animal practice in Mississippi. When Mississippi State
University established its veterinary college in the mid 1970s, she became a
founding faculty member and its only woman. Though she never had a goal of
becoming an administrator, Dean Green always had an unrelenting passion for
leadership, whether in teaching, clinical work, research or the workplace
around her. She is a voracious reader of books on leadership and once
participated as the only veterinarian in an intensive case-based leadership
program at Harvard.
A recognized clinical specialist, Dr. Green
is Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine and also
the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners.
With her appointment in 2009, she became the
first female dean at the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences
at Texas A&M University.
Dr. Smith invites comments at dfs6@cornell.edu
