For me, teaching and mentoring overlap. They’re both about forming bonds.
Josiah Meigs Professor
I want to make sure that students are not just taught by the best on paper, but that they’re taught by the best person, period. At the College of Veterinary Medicine, we want to make UGA the best.
As an undergraduate, I wanted to be a clinician, and I went into veterinary medicine because the profession has more than 20 animal specialties that translate to their human counterparts. I wanted to study disease to understand what caused it. If I had known then what I know now, my journey would have been easier. I want to help people who want to go down a similar pathway with their own goals.
I received my Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Tuskegee University’s School of Veterinary Medicine in 1987 and then became a temporary instructor at UGA’s Tifton campus. From there, I entered a combined pathology residency/Ph.D. program at UGA and became a board certified pathologist in 1995.
Teaching satisfies more than research or receiving tenure. I get “teacher’s high” when I witness my students learning. It’s rewarding when they’re learning because they want to, and when they come to class with something new that I haven’t talked about because they want to learn on their own.
Some awards that I have won throughout my career include: the Lilly Teaching Fellowship, the Carl Norden-Pfizer Distinguished Teaching Award, the Tyler Award for Teaching Innovation, the Iverson Bell Award, Tuskegee University’s Outstanding Alumnus Award and many others. She was the first African American professor at UGA to receive the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professorship. Most recently, I was awarded the 2019 President’s Fulfilling the Dream Award.
My involvement at UGA extends beyond the College of Veterinary Medicine. I am on the board of the UGA Athletic Association and the board of the Georgia Museum of Art. I also co-started the Teaching Academy Fellows Program to help early career faculty become more effective teachers.
My efforts outside of teaching include outreach into the Athens community visiting different schools to attract underrepresented students to the university. I want to make UGA an inviting place for them and get students into the pipeline of rural veterinary medicine and send them back out into under-served areas so they can inspire others to go to school.
Learn more about Paige Carmichael.