Where do deans of veterinary medicine in the United States and Canada come from?

Deans use passion, integrative thinking, communication skills, charisma, and other leadership skills to build collaborations to advance academic innovation, promote societal awareness of veterinary medicine, and enhance diversity and inclusion. This study analyzed the educational and experiential backgrounds as well as the ethnicity and gender of veterinary medical college deans in the United States and Canada. Data were collected on the deans using public sources from 1966 when the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges was started, until 2018. It was found that the advent of specialty colleges led to more visibility of clinical credentials of deans; about 17% of the deans were pathologists, and few deans came from basic science disciplines. The data show that an overwhelming majority of deans have been Caucasian male and very few were racialized/non-Caucasian academics. There are growing numbers of women veterinarians becoming deans. These data may provide some insights on how to assemble leadership training programs to create a more diverse pool of academic veterinary leaders so that more women and ethnic minorities can aspire to become deans.