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The greatest tyrannies are often not enforced by force, but by silence. In January 1776, a recent English immigrant named Thomas Paine published a 47-page pamphlet that changed history. It was called Common Sense. Its message was remarkably simple. Ordinary people should question authority. Power should justify itself. Institutions exist to serve the people - not the other way around. Paine did not write for scholars. He wrote for citizens. He translated complicated political

Character, Compassion, and Professional Identity Part 11 brings the series of The Future of Education full circle. Part 1 began by asking whether examinations measure what truly matters. Ten essays later, we arrive at perhaps the most important question of all: What if the most important qualities in a veterinarian are the very qualities that resist measurement? Veterinary education has become remarkably sophisticated. We can measure knowledge. We can assess competencies. We

Research results illustrate how individuals and organizations can become dominated by threat detection instead of curiosity. Every institution has a governing philosophy. Some are built to make profits. Some are built to preserve traditions. Universities were built to pursue truth. That distinction matters. For centuries, universities operated on a simple premise: Knowledge advances through questioning. Faculty challenged one another. Students challenged faculty. Administrato

Silence Is Not Consensus Universities often celebrate academic freedom. Academic freedom appears in mission statements, strategic plans, accreditation documents, commencement speeches, and faculty handbooks. Academic freedom is invoked when institutions wish to demonstrate their commitment to free inquiry and intellectual diversity. Yet academic freedom is frequently misunderstood. Many assume academic freedom is simply the right of a professor to say controversial things wit

Well-Being, Burnout, and the Future of the Profession Part 10 is a natural successor to Part 9. If corporate practice, educational debt, workforce shortages, and changing expectations are reshaping the profession, then we must confront one of the most important questions facing veterinary medicine today: Are we educating veterinarians, or are we educating human beings who happen to become veterinarians? The distinction matters. For much of veterinary history, resilience was a

Who Is Shaping Veterinary Education? Part 9 takes the series into potentially sensitive territory. The goal is not to criticize corporate veterinary medicine. Rather, the question is how the rapid growth of corporate practice is influencing: What veterinary schools teach, How graduates are trained, and What skills are increasingly valued. When I graduated, most veterinarians entered independently owned practices. The profession was dominated by small businesses. Practice owne

Why Elizabeth Warren Is Challenging Private Equity in Veterinary Medicine Veterinary medicine has become an unlikely political battleground. For decades, veterinary practice was largely insulated from the forces that transformed human healthcare. Most clinics were locally owned. Veterinarians built practices over a lifetime, earned the trust of generations of families, and eventually sold those practices to younger colleagues who continued the tradition. That world is disappe

How Power Drifted Away from the Faculty The parallels are becoming difficult to ignore. In universities. In corporations. In politics. In philanthropy. Different institutions. Different stakes. Different language. Yet increasingly, the same pattern appears: Decisions made within small circles, justified through procedural legitimacy, while the people most affected remain distant from the process itself. The language is always reassuring: Appropriate consultation occurred. R

The Most Important Subject We Rarely Teach Well Ask veterinarians what subjects occupied most of their time in veterinary school. They will mention anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, pathology, medicine, surgery, radiology, neurology, and dozens of others. Then ask them what occupies most of their time in practice. The answer may surprise veterinary students. Communication. Not surgery. Not pharmacology. Not diagnostic imaging. Communication. Every day. All day. Yet communica

Can a Public University Accept Extraordinary Generosity Without Surrendering its Identity? Universities have always depended upon philanthropy. Scholarships, libraries, hospitals, laboratories, and research institutes have all been built through extraordinary generosity. Society benefits when successful individuals choose to invest in education. This essay is not intended to question the generosity or motives of any donor. Transformational philanthropy has advanced universiti

The Skill No One Can Fully Define Part 7 is, in many ways, the centerpiece of this series on The Future of Veterinary Education. The previous six essays have all been building toward this question. If AI can retrieve knowledge, if competencies can measure skills, if examinations can assess recall, and if curricula can deliver information, then: What is the one thing that distinguishes an exceptional veterinarian from a merely competent one? The answer may be judgment. Ask a

When Public Institutions Stop Answering Public Questions Universities have always depended on philanthropy. Libraries bear the names of donors. Lecture halls commemorate benefactors. Scholarships open doors for students who might otherwise never have the opportunity to pursue higher education. Throughout history, private generosity has helped universities achieve things that public funding alone could never accomplish. Most people would agree that philanthropy can be a powerf

Most veterinarians know Tractor Supply Company as a retailer. It sells livestock feed, fencing supplies, horse equipment, farm tools, dog food, and backyard chicken supplies. For generations of rural Americans, it has been a trusted destination for agricultural and pet-care products. Veterinary medicine, however, was never part of that picture. Until now. In May 2026, Tractor Supply announced the acquisition of VIP Petcare, the nation's largest provider of mobile veterinary s

When Knowledge Becomes Free Parts 1–5 have focused on how we teach, assess, mentor, and develop veterinarians. Part 6 asks a question that would have seemed like science fiction when many of us entered veterinary school: What happens when knowledge itself becomes free? For most of veterinary history, knowledge was scarce. Students spent countless hours memorizing anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, pathology, and hundreds of disease syndromes because they had little choice. In

Innovation or Compression? Is veterinary education merely the transfer of knowledge, or is it the development of professional judgment? Every profession eventually confronts the same question: Can we do it faster? Veterinary education is no exception. Faced with rising student debt, workforce shortages, increasing educational costs, and pressure to produce more graduates, some educators have begun exploring an idea that would have seemed radical only a generation ago: The thr

This week, Michelle Obama stood before a national audience at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center and delivered a speech that resonated far beyond politics. It was not a speech about policy. It was not a speech about elections. It was a speech about character. About decency. About leadership. And, perhaps most importantly, about choices. One line stood out above all others: Being a decent human being is a choice. Whether one agrees with Michelle Obama's politics or n

The Economics of Veterinary Education Can veterinary education continue to provide a deeply personal professional education as the system grows larger, more expensive, and more complex? Every generation believes veterinary education was better when they were students. Every generation is probably wrong. And yet, every generation may also be seeing something real. When I entered veterinary medicine in the 60s, classes were smaller. Faculty members knew students by name. Studen

A Century of Achievement. A Season of Silence. As commencement season comes and goes, universities become very good at telling stories. The stories are uplifting. The stories celebrate history, tradition, discovery, and achievement. The stories remind us of the generations who built the institution and the thousands of students who will carry its name into the future. In a recent message, UC Davis Chancellor Gary May celebrated the university's centennial year and welcomed 12

The Promise and the Pitfalls Veterinary education loves competencies. In fact, modern education may love them a little too much. If Part 1 of this series explored how we assess veterinary students, and Part 2 examined the importance of mentorship, Part 3 asks a different question: Can professional competence be reduced to a series of measurable tasks? The answer, like most things in medicine, is complicated. The Rise of Competency-Based Education For much of the twentieth cen

When Process Replaces Answers Delay. Deflect. Disappear. Universities pride themselves on efficiency. Strategic plans promise agility. Administrators speak of innovation, responsiveness, and continuous improvement. New committees are formed. New reporting structures are introduced. New dashboards measure performance. And yet, when difficult questions are asked, something curious often happens. The machinery slows. Emails go unanswered. Questions are referred elsewhere. Commit