Roscoe Collegiate Edu-Vet – A public-private referral animal hospital initiative

West Texas ranchers and dairymen are challenged to find Board-certified or Board-eligible food animal veterinarians. Collegiate Edu-Vet Veterinary Teaching Practice Hospital (CEVTHP) is a modern facility with growing expertise in reproductive techniques, internal medicine and surgery, equine clinical services, and companion animal clinical services. Simultaneously, Collegiate Edu-Vet is preparing future one health professionals for rewarding careers.

Roscoe, Texas, is located in middle America and serves as a model for rural Texas, rural USA, and beyond in its educational, workforce preparedness, and community quality of life initiatives.

The goal of the Roscoe Collegiate educational model for student success is to develop a collaborative, sustainable and replicable model for breaking the generational poverty cycle through higher education (Roscoe Collegiate Early College), while supplying critical agricultural STEM workforce shortage areas that will be critical to meeting the daunting challenge of feeding and clothing 9 billion people on the planet by 2050 (Roscoe Collegiate STEM Academy).

Edu-Vet is a core element of the Roscoe Collegiate educational model that focuses on a range of veterinary medicine and business opportunities for students and adults. Foremost, the mission of the Collegiate Edu-Vet Veterinary Teaching Hospital Practice (CEVTHP) is to provide exceptional and compassionate Board-certified or Board eligible animal healthcare services with a complementary relevant and rigorous learning environment for Collegiate Edu-Vet students in biomedical pathways. The vision is to be recognized regionally and nationally as one of the premier referral veterinary hospitals through innovations in clinical services, education, and scientific medical resources.

The CEVTHP is a private for-profit business that partners with RCISD as a public non-profit organization to serve public good. Together, the two organizations are prudent, entrepreneurial, and responsible stewards of our human, fiscal and natural resources.

The key to a successful private veterinary teaching hospital practice is a team of people working in concert. It takes the teamwork of receptionist, office manager, LVT, CVA, kennel assistant, veterinarians, and volunteers to ensure that a veterinary hospital runs smoothly and delivers compassionate patient care on a daily basis. Referral veterinarians also play a supporting role.

Veterinarians are principal owners and administrators of the private Roscoe Veterinary Teaching Hospital Practice. The principal owners manage the business operations and the independent medical practice. The principal owners lease the Collegiate Edu-Vet Teaching Hospital facilities and maintain close communication with the RCISD Chancellor. The private veterinarians may serve as salaried adjunct faculty members.

From the Superintendent

As a result of the technology revolution, the world is becoming exponentially smaller in record time, resulting in a more culturally diverse and complex world in which we live. In 2015, both Texas and the U.S. look dependently upon the educational systems to prepare students who can compete globally for jobs and careers. As the need for higher educational attainment among constituents becomes imperative to future successes of this state and this nation, both public and higher educational systems are in the reinvention mode, as we learn how to work more collaboratively toward common student good in a P-20 model for Education. At Roscoe Collegiate, we embrace these challenges, as we strive to sharpen not only our collaboration skills, but our creative problem solving ability, at the same time. As a National Rural Model for an Early College/ STEM Academy, we pride ourselves in preparing very culturally and socio-economically diverse students to handle the rigorous demands of earning the Associate Degree while in high school here at Roscoe Collegiate. As a STEM Academy, we are preparing to go the extra mile to bring students real world relevance so vital for a strong foundation in critical work shortage fields involving science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). As an institution that adheres strongly to a research based lesson cycle, we require students to conduct their own investigations, draw their own insightful conclusions, and create their own persuasive analysis of many topics leading toward industry certification in high demand STEM fields related to the biomedical sciences and engineering.

With much assistance from our higher education and system partners, Roscoe Collegiate is intent on developing a strong and successful model for collaborative rural education in Texas and the U.S., that can be replicated by many of the over 700 school districts classified as rural in Texas, who currently serve over 800,000 of Texas’ 5,000,000 and growing student population. The goal of this model is to prove that when structured correctly, all students, regardless of cultural, demographic, or socio-economic background, can become truly college and career ready, with the Associate Degree and Industry Recognized Certification in hand, upon completion of high school.

Operating collaboratively with Texas A&M AgriLife Research/Extension, Roscoe Collegiate is also home to the first school-wide 4H program in Texas, with a goal of developing students prepared to help provide solutions for the Five Grand Challenges established by the nation’s land grant universities of feeding our world, protecting our environment, improving our health, enriching our youth, and growing our economy.

Early successes of the model include steady increases in graduates completing the Associate prior to graduation from high school. In our first year as an Early College, 2010, we had our first Associate Degreed graduate. In 2011, 52% of the graduating class earned the Associate Degree, followed by 58% in 2012, 73% in 2013, 89% in 2014, and 90% of the Class of 2015 and beyond. I am confident of the success of our system, our students, and our state, nation, and world.

Dr. Kim Alexander
Superintendent Roscoe Collegiate ISD

Greg Wortham
Roscoe Collegiate STEM Academy Coordinator

Greg Wortham works with RCISD staff, faculty, business partners, and higher education allies as STEM Coordinator for the Roscoe Collegiate Independent School District. Wortham is a business partner who serves as adjunct faculty.

Wortham earned his B.A. (1983) from Rice University magna cum laude with a double major in political science (honors) and policy studies (energy & environmental policy). He earned his J.D. (with honors) from The School of Law at The University of Texas in 1990, graduating simultaneously with a Masters of Public Affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas.

Wortham is president and chief operating officer of New Amsterdam Global Solutions LLC (www.NewAmsterdamGlobal.com), serving international clients in energy, infrastructure, regional development, and educational transformation.

He founded and serves as executive director of the Texas Wind Energy Clearinghouse, the Cline Shale Alliance, and the Lone Star Enchantment Alliance, and other regional development and infrastructure entities. Greg served as the elected Mayor of the energy city of Sweetwater, Texas, from May 2007 until announcing his candidacy for the Texas Senate in July 2014.

Greg’s experience includes more than 30 years in energy business, rural development, legislative action, public relations, and energy & environmental policy. A 1979 graduate of Sweetwater High School, he has worked for the region as a staff member at the City of Sweetwater, Texas House of Representatives, Texas Senate, and U.S. Congress – as well as via regional energy and municipal alliances.

From 1989 through 2004, Greg worked for electric cooperatives in various capacities at the national level, in Texas, and in New York City. He served as Senior Corporate Counsel at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association from 1995-1998, serving almost 30 million Americans who own the Nation’s 1,000 rural electric cooperatives. Greg also served as chief operating officer of a New York City-based energy services cooperative from 1998 through 2004. Greg supervised daily operations of a diversified entity that was a competitive retail electricity supplier in 250 metro zip codes, petroleum products marketing company, active energy efficiency innovator, renewable energy retailer, New York City power plant developer, and a leading New York recovery advocate after September 11.

His rural development experience includes development of the “Rural Resource Team” concept in Fisher County, Texas (1987), and the Rural Resource Team approach continues to be used throughout the U.S. to maximize the synergy between an area’s local resources and the outside resources that a community can call upon. He served as a rural development specialist for Big Country Electric Co-op in Texas in 1989 and also directed an innovative public-private partnership to save five Texas state historical parks in 1993.

As a lawyer, Greg has practiced energy, administrative and legislative law in the Washington, D.C., offices of Los Angeles-based Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker and Atlanta-based Sutherland Asbill & Brennan. His legal experience has included participation in the development of the Energy Policy Act of 1992, continuing Congressional debates on energy legislation, evolution of competitive wholesale and retail markets, and advancement of the Texas wind, solar, and oil & gas industries. Greg is licensed to practice law in Texas, the District of Columbia, and before the Supreme Court of the United States. He has testified before the United States Congress and the New York City Council.

Greg also worked as a public relations aide in the National Football League from 1979 to 1982 for the Houston Oilers and the New Orleans Saints, and was a Congressional Intern after his freshman year in college for Congressman Charles W. Stenholm (1980).