MSU College of Veterinary Medicine professor Laura Nelson has been awarded an MSU Lilly Teaching Fellowship for the 2014-2015 academic year. This competitive award program enables promising junior faculty to cultivate teaching excellence in a special year-long collaboration with colleagues and mentors.

"I'm very honored to be named a Lilly Fellow and to be representing the College as part of the program," says Nelson, DVM, DACVS, assistant professor in Small Animal Clinical Sciences. "To be part of a cohort of MSU educators working to develop their own teaching as well as helping to shape the campus's academic culture—that's really exciting for me."

Six assistant professors from across disciplines have been selected as Lilly Teaching Fellows at MSU for the 2014-2015 academic year.

"Dr. Nelson is an excellent example of the College's commitment to student learning and to faculty development," Dean Christopher Brown says. "Her students speak highly of her passion for teaching, her creativity, and her strong mentorship. She is a great asset to the College, the MSU Veterinary Hospital. and the University."

The program's signature components are: a teaching development project, an annual retreat, bi-weekly seminars on college teaching, and mentorship. Nelson's project, "Evaluation of Bias and Variability in Clinical Grading Practices, will evaluate the relationships between personal characteristics and clinical grades. The outcomes of her project will serve as a baseline for further evaluation and development of clinical grading practices. Her mentor during the fellowship year will be Dr. P.S. Mohankumar.

Nelson will be attending the Veterinary Educator Collaborative Symposium in June, which is hosted by the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges. In addition to her clinical work, she recently began a two-year study on canine bloat, one of the leading causes of death among dogs. The project is funded by a grant from the American Kennel Club Canine Health Foundation.

April 21, 2014