Animal Health Center

The Charles and Claire Jacobsen Animal Health Center, set to break ground this spring, features 15,500 square feet of multi-use space flexible for teaching, research and clinical training — including wet labs, a surgery suite and a necropsy area.

It will include a covered outdoor area for animal examinations and a mobile ambulatory component that will expose students to livestock practices and encourage them to consider a career in animal care.

The new center is set to become an interactive, experiential animal facility that embraces hands-on learning, supporting the next generation of leaders in veterinary medicine, animal healthcare and animal agriculture. The College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences offers one of the largest animal sciences programs in the country, with 75% of students entering with a desire to become a veterinarian – and is poised to serve as a much-needed pipeline for students who seek to enter a career in large animal veterinary care.

The center, located off of Via Carta Road, will be walking distance to the Oppenheimer Family Equine Center and horse paddocks. New student housing designated for students who work in one of the college’s 15 student-run production facilities is also being constructed nearby.

The building will reinforce teaching, research and clinical training for animal science students in a modern, state-of-the-art facility that will meet the growing demand for animal health and science professionals.

Cal Poly is a leader in veterinary medicine and animal agriculture, and one of only two undergraduate teaching veterinary clinics in the United States. The new center will provide an enhanced teaching space for veterinary care and expand on opportunities for students to get hands-on experience treating the college’s livestock including horses, cattle and swine. New treatment stalls and loading areas will create ease in moving animals from pasture to the facility — eliminating the need to treat animals in the field and giving students access to state-of-the-art equipment. In addition, the lab area will be configured with technology to allow larger groups of students to view procedures as they are done. 

“This new facility will allow us to teach at a level that better prepares students planning to attend veterinary school to transition with ease,” said Kim Sprayberry, associate head of the Animal Science Department. It will also have modern, state-of-the-art instrumentation and equipment that will enable students who work in small-animal practices to learn in an environment that is on par with their current workplaces, as well as the practices they will join after veterinary school.

The Charles and Claire Jacobsen Animal Health Center will ultimately foster a more collaborative and interdisciplinary approach between people, animals and their shared environment while training students in sustainable animal food production and animal agriculture. “We have spent many years improvising and adapting with our existing facilitates to offer students the best hands-on learning experience possible,” said George Gallagher, head of the Animal Science Department. “We are now evolving.” The complex will position Cal Poly as the top undergraduate animal science program for student, faculty and industry partners in the country.

Naming opportunities in the Animal Health Center in areas of teaching, research and clinical training are available. To learn more, contact Abigail McCullough, director of development, at 805-858-0393 or email ammccull@calpoly.edu. 

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