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First Dean’s Circle of Excellence scholarship awarded

Dean Jim Lloyd presents veterinary medical student Chris Alling with a Dean’s Circle membership pin after naming Alling the recipient of the group’s first scholarship. (Photo by Sarah Carey)

Third-year UF College of Veterinary Medicine student Christopher Alling received the first-ever student scholarship awarded by the Dean’s Circle of Excellence, a select group of college supporters, during the group’s annual luncheon meeting on Jan. 18 at the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando.

College Dean Jim Lloyd presented Alling with a Dean’s Circle of Excellence membership pin and noted that Alling and scholarship recipients that follow him will be considered members of the group going forward.

Alling was selected by the college’s scholarship committee on the basis of criteria that included financial need, academic standing and community service.

He grew up in Upton, Massachusetts, and attended undergraduate school at the University of Vermont. His extracurricular activities include teaching English as a second language through two separate programs, one of which was aimed at Vermont dairy workers, and his more recent involvement in Project Heal, which provides small animal sterilization clinics and large animal antiparasitic treatments in Ecuador.

Alling hopes to pursue mixed animal practice following graduation from veterinary school.

“I go to school with some exceptional people, students who display tremendous work ethic, efficiency and commitment to their education and to the profession as a whole,” Alling said. “To be recognized in this way when so many others could have been chosen is extremely meaningful, as is the support I have received from these very people in the time since the award was announced.”

He added that his involvement in the Dean’s Circle would represent for him a way of maintaining ties to a school that has provided him with “an excellent veterinary education” and most of all helped introduce him to “some of the best friends I’ll ever have.”