A 162,000-square-foot building that will house Rowan University’s Shreiber School of Veterinary Medicine has reached the halfway point in its construction.
The signing of a 7-foot, 300-pound steel beam served as a celebratory point in the project. The first to sign was South Jersey businessman and entrepreneur Gerry Shreiber, who donated $30 million to support veterinary student scholarships.
“We are signing this beam today, and in 11 short months, we will have our first DVM class,” said Dr. Matthew Edson, the school’s founding dean. “Our teaching hospital will be a phenomenal resource for the community. We don’t have a lot of access here in South Jersey for emergency care, for specialty care.”
The school’s opening is subject to accreditation approval from the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Council on Education.
Rowan is planning for an inaugural class of 70 students and the eventual expansion to 90 students annually.
The new building will contain classrooms, a teaching hospital, diagnostic laboratories and the Virtua Health College Research Center. It sits on a 300-acre tract in Harrison Township, a mile east of Rowan’s main Glassboro campus.
In 2022, Virtua Health invested $85 million and Rowan pledged $125 million toward a partnership focused on education and research in the medical, nursing and health care fields.