PrideVMC announces student award winners

Jessica Rutten (left), Kaitlin Brown (right)

The Pride Veterinary Medical Community (PrideVMC) announced this week the winners of its two new student awards, the Student Diversity Bonus Award and the Student Intersectionality Award—both sponsored by Merck Animal Health.

Jessica Rutten, a student at Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, received the Diversity Bonus Award and Kaitlin Brown, a student at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, received the Student Intersectionality Award.

Brown and Rutten were selected because of their “commitment to diversity and inclusion, the professionalism of their award applications, and the creativity and innovation evident in their application essays,” according to an organizational release.

Each will receive a $4,000 scholarship on behalf of Merck Animal Health.

More about the winners and their awards

Student Diversity Bonus Award Recipient: Jessica Rutten

This award was inspired by The Diversity Bonus, in which author Scott E. Page highlights some of the key benefits of all forms of diversity, including improved decision making, increased creativity and less job turnover.

For Rutten, this achievement highlights two of her passions, LGBTQ+ pride, and diversity and inclusion. “Receiving this award has me feeling both honored and proud to be an active participant at the intersection of veterinary medicine and the LGBTQ+ community,” says Rutten.

Student Intersectionality Award Recipient: Kaitlin Brown

Intersectionality is “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group,” according to the release.

Acknowledging this oppression can help enhance efforts to stop discrimination and promote equality. "Winning this award means so much to me …Thank you so much to PrideVMC for sponsoring a scholarship that promotes diversity and intersectionality within the veterinary community,” says Brown.

Scott Bormann, senior vice president of Merck Animal Health in North America, says the organization is very proud of its role in furthering diversity within the veterinary community. “The profession is only as strong and diverse as its members, and these two recipients showcase the profession’s strength, innovation and bright future,” he says.

To learn more about PrideVMC go here.