HomeMy WebLinkAboutWomen Veterinary Students at A&M`It was great that I graduated, but I didn't care if I was ~rst.'
Sonja Lee, Lubbock veterinarian
Making a difference
Four decades later, female vets are majority at A&M
By JOSH BAUGH
Eagle Staff Writer
exas A&M's College of
Veterinary Medicine
opened its doors to
women in 1963. And in
walked Sonja Lee.
It was no small feat,
though she
won't admit to
that.
"It was
;~ just a coin-
er -: cidence,"
{ F x.
~ ~ ~;~ the vet
~ ~; ~ ~" said Fri-
day from
mow` Lubbock,
' just
before
going into
surgery. "I was born in the
right year."
Had she been born a year
earlier, Lee would have
attended the veterinary
medicine school at Okla-
homa State.
"It wasn't a big deal to
me," she said of being the
first woman to graduate
from A&M's vet school. "It
was great that I graduated,
but I didn't care if I was first
or fourth or fourteenth."
But Lee, born in Corpus
Christi 63 years ago, made
history in 1966 when she
became the first woman to
graduate from A&M as a
doctor of veterinary medi-
cine. This year, `iwhich
marks the 90th anniversary
plot to lessen the strength of
the Aggies headed to the mil-
itary, thereby giving Red
Russia an advantage.
And Lee, now asmall-ani-
mal veterinarian in Lub-
bock, had to endure com-
ments from her classmates
as well.
"There was just one
woman," Adams said. "So
she was just given a hard
time, teased and not shown
the respect of equals that she
should have had."
But Lee was literally
decades ahead of her time.
Eight years after she grad-
uated, the female enrollment
in the vet school had reached
25 percent. By the mid 1980s,
enrollment had balanced out,
and by the early '90s, male
enrollment had begun to
drastically drop.
Since 2003, women have
made up more than 70 percent
of the vet school students.
"I certainly think that 10 to
20 years from now, clearly the
majority of veterinarians will
be women," Adams said.
Lee said veterinary medi-
cine isn't the only field that's
of the college, female enroll-
ment has reached 74 per-
cent.
Though the humble Lee
doesn't revel in her trailblaz-
ing past:, one of her former
classmates said she deserves
credit fc~r her achievements.
"It was a big deal," said
Richard. Adams, dean of the
A&M Ci~llege of Veterinary
Medicine & Biomedical Sci-
ences. "There was a lot of
criticism leveled her way,
and she handled it like the
outstanding person she was
and is to this day."
The criticism included an
accusation that she was
involved in a communist..
had a renaissance.
"It's a lot of areas that have
~~ehanged like that,". she said.
"I don't feel like I had any-
'thing to do with it. A&M
'.opened its doors, and women
;'showed they were able to do
:pit."
Her taste for veterinary
:medicine started early. As a
'child, she mended her duck's
broken leg with popsicle
sticks. And she had a very
brief stint with 4-H, the agri-
culturally driven boys and
':girls club.
Lee attended only one meet-
=ing. They'd separated boys
from girls, and she was told
he'd learn haw to do domes-
tic things.
"I didn't want to cook and
sew," she said. "I wanted to
raise a calf."
Lee has spent her entire life
around animals, but she could-
n't recall seeing a woman vet
when she was a child. As a
youngster, she, loved horses
and wanted to ranch. But Lee
soon realized that she would-
n't be able to afford that
dream, so she decided the next
best thing would be to work on
the horses.
After finishing school, Lee
stayed in College Station and
worked for the Texas Agricul-
tural Extension Service (now
Texas Cooperative Extension)
~.~*
~' .
Photos special to The E.
Sonja Lee,. a veterinarian in Lubbock, was the f
woman to'graduate from Texas A&M Universil
College of Veterinary Medicine in 1966.
her first husband fin- ._
his DVM. When he fm-
the two moved to Lub-
"My husband wanted to
come to Lubbock because
there were a lot of horses out
here," she said. "He couldn't
see far enough in College Sta-
tion. Out here you can see for-
ever - of course, it's all cot-
ton fields. ;'
When the couple divorced,
she stayed because her chil-
dren had already started
school. Lee had planned to
leave Lubbock when they fin-
ished. But she remarried and
never did leave.
"I love the people here," she ~
said. "But I hate the climate."
In Lubbock, the winters are
cold. And through the spring,
she has to fight dust storm
after dust storm.
But Sonja Lee proved long
ago that she knows how to
endure.
^ Josh Baugh's a-mail address
is josh.baugh@theeagle.com.
~'~sax*
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