United by Purpose. Built for Impact.
PENN VET’S STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK • 2025-2030
DEAN’S MESSAGE
Dear Friends of Penn Vet,
It is with great optimism that I share our new strategic framework, United by Purpose. Built for Impact. As one of the world’s leading academic veterinary healthcare institutions, this five-year roadmap affirms who we are and where we are going.
To develop this framework, we solicited faculty, staff, students, alumni, and our Board of Advisors through a two-year iterative process. Our community contributed through focus groups, interviews, departmental and hospital strategic plans, and broader planning sessions. As insights evolved, they were shared through a School-wide survey, affording opportunities for input. A durable, shared vision emerged. This feedback, coupled with macro trends in veterinary education, informed the creation of our new framework. It not only reflects Penn’s In Principle & Practice, but it also captures our collective voice and the unity of our purpose. For our alumni, donors, and external partners, this framework articulates our mission and direction with clarity.
This framework is an ongoing effort, open to feedback and refinement. Nevertheless, our path to 2030 is ambitious but within reach. We are ready to turn purpose into progress, and progress into lasting impact for animals, for people, and for our planet.
Warm regards,
ANDREW M. HOFFMAN, DVM, DVSc, DACVIM
Gilbert S. Kahn Dean of Veterinary Medicine
Penn Vet has a distinguished history since its founding in 1884 as a global leader in One Health through veterinary medicine education, research, and clinical care.
As one of the most accessed and trusted medical professions, we believe that veterinarians are uniquely well-positioned to contribute solutions to pressing challenges impacting local to global communities today, including food security, biosecurity, biodiversity, climate change, and health care access for underserved areas.
PENN VET’S STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK 2025–2030
OUR MISSION
We train the next generation of leaders to advance health care outcomes and access; ensure global health; bolster sustainable agriculture; support interdisciplinary career paths; and foster community and wellness in the veterinary profession.
OUR VISION
A world with exceptional and vastly more integrated health of animals, people, and the environment.
OUR VALUES
Leadership, collaboration, interdisciplinarity, opportunity, sustainability.
Driving Better Health Care Outcomes & Access
We provide world-class care for animals, serving the region with 24/7 hospital care and on-farm services.
Our veterinary students receive training in both companion and large animal medicine, with access to complex caseloads that are among the highest volume in academic veterinary medicine. Penn Vet’s House Officer Program is one of the largest training programs for residents and interns in the world, an outgrowth of our legacy as the birthplace of veterinary specialty programs. The School’s robust basic, translational, and clinical research programs train earlycareer clinician-scientists, advancing our understanding of disease prevention, diagnosis and management, and propelling health care outcomes.
Faculty across multiple specialties are using Artificial Intelligence in the classroom, labs, and clinics to improve knowledge and outcomes on inherited eye diseases, equine lameness, swine behavior, and more. Our Shelter Medicine and Community Engagement Program provides medical care using mobile and in-shelter approaches and advises shelters and rescue organizations on best practices; the program also provides guidance and leadership on community engagement to maximize benefits to the community members. Penn Vet’s Working Dog Center, a national leader in sports medicine, rehabilitation training, and research, is optimizing the health and performance of working dogs.
OUR GOALS
Modernize our two teaching hospitals to improve health care integration, operations, and access to clinical trials, including plans for a new Intensive Care Unit and Radiation Oncology Suite at Ryan Hospital, the region’s only certified trauma center for companion animals.
Build a Primary Care, Community Health Clinic on Penn Vet’s Philadelphia campus to expand earlyentry veterinary training across the spectrum of care, and bolster local community access to companion animal care and One Health interprofessional services.
Advance new centers of excellence across core areas of strength: Equine Research, Sports Medicine & Rehabilitation, Animal Welfare & Behavior, and Germline Cell Research.
Grow our capacity to train veterinary specialists through innovative specialty pathway programs for veterinary students.
Leading Global Health and One Health Interdisciplinary Efforts
Immunology, oncology, microbiology, and vaccinology research at Penn Vet has led to numerous scientific discoveries impacting animal and human health.
Our interdisciplinary programs and research centers, including the Penn Vet Cancer Center, the Institute for Infectious and Zoonotic Diseases, the Center for Germline Cells and Transgenesis, the Comparative Immunotherapeutics Program, the Center for Host-Microbe Interactions, and the Comparative Medicine Group, provide resources and convergence hubs to address grand challenges in biomedical research.
Penn Vet is recognized as a leader in wildlife health, biodiversity, and disease research through our Wildlife Futures Program, which optimizes wildlife management for Pennsylvania and beyond. The School’s One Health@Penn Research Community convenes faculty and students who are working on innovative solutions to address climate change, biodiversity, antimicrobial resistance, global food security, and emerging diseases.
Our dual degree programs, the broadest portfolio of master’s programs available to veterinary students in the world, which span six schools at Penn (the renowned VMD-PhD, VMD-MES, VMD-ML, VMD-MN/ Nursing, VMD-MSW, VMD-MSTR, VMD-MPH, VMD-MBA), along with our Master of Animal Welfare and Behavior program, prepare future veterinarians to engage in interdisciplinary problem solving at the critical juncture of human health, environmental health, and animal health and welfare.
OUR GOALS
Establish a Universitywide One Health Institute at Penn Vet to address global challenges by recognizing the interconnectedness of animals, people, and the planet. Provide a hub for interdisciplinary and interprofessional teams to advance solutions to vexing One Health problems.
Develop a Center on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) to enhance national and regional preparedness, diagnostic resources, education, and expertise on AMR.
Create new endowed professorships to support faculty working in oncology, immunology, infectious disease, and other areas of strength.
Serving Agriculture & Innovation in Animal Health
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We are a key partner to agriculture, the largest economic driver in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, serving on the front lines of animal health care, surveillance, and diagnostics.
The Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security (CSAFS) provides training, research, and expertise in infectious disease surveillance, animal welfare, population medicine, and productivity, benefiting farmers, industry partners, and veterinarians. We are developing novel and scalable methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the animal agriculture sector, including mitigating enteric (rumen) and non-enteric (waste and landfill origin) methane. We are participating in organic and regenerative agriculture and improving the health of our land and watersheds by integrating grazing and forestry through agroforestry and silvopasture practices.
As part of the Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System (PADLS), Penn Vet’s New Bolton Center (NBC) helps to protect animals and humans from health threats and minimize agricultural economic loss.
Nationally renowned for advancing equine surgery and medicine, NBC is the cornerstone of Pennsylvania’s equine sector economy. We are advancing the health and welfare of horses through research on orthopedic injuries, laminitis, colic, neurologic conditions, viral infections, and racehorse safety through the Pennsylvania Equine Toxicology and Research Lab (PETRL). Our students experience a breadth of equine clinical rotations and equine performance specialties that are unmatched among the 35 U.S. accredited veterinary schools.
OUR GOALS
Bolster sustainable agriculture and food security globally by intensifying scientific research on factors that contribute to climate adaptation, mitigation, resilience, economic viability, and societal valuation of farming.
Modernize and expand research facilities for the Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security and dairy operations.
Serve as a keystone partner in the Universitywide initiatives ‘Campus as a Living Laboratory’ and ‘Nature Positive Campus.’
Reach 100% renewable electricity by 2030.
Fostering Community, Engagement, and Wellness in the
Profession
We are committed to increasing outreach to socioeconomically disadvantaged, first-generation, and rural middle, high school, and undergraduate students, inspiring them to pursue careers in STEM and veterinary medicine.
Our multicultural programs promote learning about and celebrating differences, enhancing veterinary students’ training, and preparing them to serve a host of constituencies.
Penn Vet employs a team of social work professionals who understand the unique wellness challenges in veterinary medicine. Our Veterinary Social Work Training Program provides essential, no-cost mental health and well-being support to students, clients, and clinical teams. We host graduate-level social work interns and post-graduate fellows who deliver high-quality, closely supervised services to the institution. These trainees offer individual counseling, support for clinical students and clients, and lead well-being initiatives across the hospitals.
Our Penn Vet alumni foster opportunity, community, and career growth through alumni mentorship and offer guidance to students and recent graduates on clinical pathways, specialization, practice ownership, and wellness.
OUR GOALS
Launch the Veterinary Social Work Learning Opportunity Program for house officers and VMD students, to enhance our hospitals’ level of care, and to support the well-being and communication skills of our earlycareer veterinarians.
Enhance crosscultural collaboration in veterinary medicine and increase Penn Vet clinical capacity through intentional, international and offshore veterinary clinical exchange training.
Increase financial aid to make veterinary education accessible to socioeconomically disadvantaged, firstgeneration, and rural students while reducing student indebtedness.
Create communal spaces for dining, informal and formal gathering, rest and well-being, entrepreneurship, and flexible learning.
“Our strategic framework reflects the shared values, expertise, and aspirations of the Penn Vet community. It charts an ambitious, achievable path toward a future of deeper impact across animal, human, and environmental health.”
Gilbert S. Kahn Dean of Veterinary Medicine
ANDREW M. HOFFMAN, DVM, DVSc, DACVIM