SCAVMA Board Meeting Agenda - January 18, 2012
Call to order.
Approval of minutes from last meeting (November 17, 2011). Approved at 1800.
Any items that need to be added to tonight’s agenda?
Officer Reports
President – Christina Sander
1. VLE Professor Nominations and Finalist: Dr. Barter, Dr. Pollard, and Dr.
Pesavento are finalists!
2. Status Update
a. VLE Student Application – due in about a month. There will now be
fresh nominations every year, instead of rolling over. The board could
be in charge of nominations, or we could open up nominations to the
whole school. Faculty will need at least six months warning, so we want
to discuss this soon.
b. New officer elections
i. CERE online system will be used for student body voting
ii. SCAVMA reps: get people in your class interested if possible.
Office hours may encourage interest.
3. Communication with the student body: SCAVMA board has done very well, we
try to take into account individual issues for students, but deadlines are
deadlines and we should try to stick to them in most cases. Talk to Christina if
you have a question about communicating deadlines with students.
a. Deadlines and leadership changes – brainstorm session
i. Email is probably most reliable way to communicate (paper can
get lost); remind people to check email regularly.
ii. We could utilize CERE for this purpose – use “announcement”
function. SCAVMA also has a CERE tab we can utilize.
iii. We could write reminders on white boards, maybe add a joke or
quote so students read them.
iv. Most people are being responsible and using the system
appropriately, and we have had positive feedback from
students. Maybe we shouldn’t be so flexible.
v. Keep doing what we’re doing for now, and maybe move to CERE
announcements in the future.
vi. From negative feedback we have received, there have not been
any suggestions about how to better reach these students.
4. Upcoming Events
a. Dr. Derrick Hall (AVMA) comes to Davis!
i. Our direct liaison to AVMA. He wants to address the board on
Tuesday night with dinner, to exchange information between us
and AVMA. Wants to explain SCAVMA’s role. Dinner talk is
casual and informal.
ii. Also will host a lunchtime talk 12-1pm. We want to check names
for everyone at lunch meeting.
b. February Funding Meeting: 1/26, 2pm, 1013 Valley: to review February
funding applications. New application system going well so far; major
limitation is that student reps have to fund these events with their own
money before reimbursement. This is an unfair stress on students, and
will be reviewed.
c. Meeting with Development Office
i. Will be held 1/30/12, 2pm in Scrubs. Board members welcome
to attend and listen.
d. Budget Meeting: will be held in February/March – more information to
come.
e. Yearbook Meeting: This year we switched to an electronic version of a
yearbook – this has saved us money! Seniors have not responded with
feedback yet. There will be a meeting with the yearbook editors to
figure out the next step, so that yearbook is no longer on SCAVMA’s
books.
5. Future Projects
a. Focus groups: to discuss how to best organize lunch talks, deal with
reimbursement, etc.
Vice President – CJ Johnson
 Report
Treasurer – Bernadette Grismer, Christine Haas
 UDA account status
o No deposits to our account since start of this school year.
o There have been some issues with people not reading deadlines or
sticking to them.
 Changes to application system: used to allow two applications
per club/vendor. Now each student rep gets two applications.
Clubs still get two applications per year, but for health care
vendors, this means more events/applications. We could try to
limit campus events, but for now we want to allow quarterly
events for companies. Vendor policy will change once everyone
is on semester system.
 When people miss deadlines, we are now allowing retroactive
funding. Also applies to students whose events went over
budget. These students are now allowed to apply retroactively
to make up the difference. However, in cases of overspending,
the retroactive application counts as the student’s second
application of the year. If the student has already applied for
funding twice (i.e. went over budget on the second application),
there will be no retroactive funding.
 Bookkeeping going well, we are about $7000 under budget currently. We are
still getting money from the bookstore every month. There might be a few
things unaccounted for in budget, but in good shape overall.
 Tell people to cash SCAVMA checks if they have them – this would make end of
year bookkeeping easier. Currently there is no expiration date on SCAVMA
checks – we may want to change this.
Secretary – Robyn Kirkwood
President Elect – Colleen Geisbush
 Last year, at Camelid Symposium, we funded 33 llama rescues, so we got a
plaque 

Pursuing Administrative Support for Professional Financial Advice for Student
Clubs
o With intent of assisting clubs in becoming more self-sustaining.
Feedback from advisors has been positive so far.
o Dean wants more communication between students and dean, wants
all students filled in on discussion at dean’s round table, FAQ, etc.
Would like all students to have access to this information.
SAVMA Delegates’ Report –Alison Tarbell and Christine Hsueh
 Fundraiser idea: penny wars.
o Instead of classes competing, we could solicit faculty and students to do
silly things, based on which donation jar received the most money. We
could have professors agree to these things, might be more appealing
to students than other rewards (e.g. pizza party) and then we won’t
have to come up with specific rewards for each class.
 Symposium: zero interest from student body in attending so far.
 As of right now, there is nothing we really need to fundraise for (because no
student interest in attending symposium), so no pressure about fundraisers.
CVMA Delegate – Alissa Blum
IVSA Representative – Samantha McDonnel
 Update: IVSA
o Purpose of IVSA: International Veterinary Student Association
coordinates exchanges with other vet schools internationally.
o Trying to email IVSA rep/IEO (president of USA chapter), but no
response so far. Idea of IVSA position was to have a UC Davis subchapter, but hard to get information about how this would work.
o This position may not need to continue if the sub-chapter cannot be
formed.
o IVO wanted to work with IVSA, but hasn’t worked out yet.
o Outreach efforts to IEO will continue. Updates to follow.
Committee Reports
Josh Project: Brittany Stevens
Constitution Committee
Mentor Committee
One Health Initiative Committee
SAVMA Symposium Committee
Yearbook Committee
Board Member Reports
Legislative Liaison – Hanie Elfenbein
Waggie Editors – David Kim, Lea Mehrkens
1st Year SCAVMA Reps – Emily Isaacs, Michael Ramos
 Health care vendor policy discussion
o Vendors pay for booth space. Companies cannot give gifts or donations;
anything given out must be purchased for full value.
o Pet food companies are part of this policy.
Policy does not specify punishment in case of faculty or student
violation; currently under review.
Class of 2015 Presidents – Shirley Chen, Michael Armer, Andrew Findlaytor
2nd Year SCAVMA Reps – Samantha Haw, Jamie Case
 Career fair organization still going well; class announcements have started.
 SCAVMA reps – please include an announcement about this event in your class
emails. Event will need volunteers, so please ask students to help.
 Raffle with prizes has been set. Silent auction has been approved – may
happen.
 Event will be held in the ARC Ballroom, February 3 at 5pm.
Class of 2014 Presidents – Elizabeth Engall, CJ Johnson, Jonathan Levin
3rd Year SCAVMA Reps – Katrina Castaneda, Cristin Roach
 6 Ways to Make a Good First Impression
o
 Industry Night: Career Fair
o Practices have been invited to come visit with students; deadline for
response is this Friday 1/20. Practices are encouraged to discuss
mentorships, externships, internships, etc. with students. Thirteen
practices have signed up so far, and our goal is 20. Good variety of
equine, exotic animal, lab animal practices so far.
o Historically not well attended, so “Six ways to make a good impression”
event to encourage attendance. Ideally, students will appear in
professional attire and bring resumes.
o Lunch talk will be held to provide information about this event.
o Second year students are currently shadowing this position/event to
take it over next year.
o Thank you for vendors is being planned. Projector with pictures will be
running during event. Send pictures if you want to say thank you!
o Ask practitioners if you think they would be interested in attending!!
o
Class of 2013 Presidents – Justine Ma, Austin Kerns, Esther Zakowski
4th Year SCAVMA Reps – Scott Hamilton, Sarah Smolley
Class of 2012 Presidents – Dan Barbour, Erin Branyan, Catherine Gunther-Murphy
Graduate Professional Student Rep – Denise Gonzalez, Kat Tomalty
Faculty Reports



Dr. Ilkiw: FAQ from dean will be posted on student page in VIPER.
Dr. Puschner
Dr. Jandrey
New Business
 Clubs are having trouble doing wetlabs, because it’s now part of the curriculum for
the first year class. These events require a faculty member to be present.
o Will become an increasing problem because new curriculum is taking up more
of doctors’ time.
o Clubs may have to evolve, use different modes of learning.
o
This is a facility issue as well, because facilities are being used more in new
curriculum, and may be needed for preparation and unavailable for
wetlab/student extracurricular use.
Announcements
 No first year interest in running for SCAVMA positions. President/president elect
could come speak to classes if possible. One email has been sent out to student body,
will send another this month.
Adjournment at 1857.