NATIONAL REPORT — Colleges often welcome students back each fall with a host of new programs and facilities that help them stand apart from the competition.

Several veterinary schools will begin the new term with additional course offerings, while others work toward new facilities, with construction under way.

Here's a look at what's greeting veterinary students returning to class:

• Colorado State University's (CSU) College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences is constructing its new Diagnostic Medical Center (DMC) on the South Campus. As of July, the concrete structure of the building was mostly complete. The DMC, a three-story, 90,000-square-foot building, will house the veterinary diagnostic laboratory, clinical pathology, CSU extension veterinarian and the Animal Population Health Institute (APHI) laboratory. It will attach to the north side of the James Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital and is expected to open in December 2009.
• Cornell University and the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets are constructing the New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Center (AHDC), an $80 million, 125,000-square-foot facility slated for completion by 2010. The center, located at Cornell's veterinary-college complex, will consolidate 200 animal-health positions from 12 locations and house Level 2 and Level 3 biosafety laboratories, which will enhance the university's ability to investigate infectious diseases. AHDC also will include a necropsy facility and diagnostic laboratories. The new facility will replace Cornell's 1978 quarters and allow the school to expand its service, teaching and research capabilities. Additionally, AHDC is being constructed in an eco-friendly manner and is expected to use half the energy of similar, traditional structures.
• Iowa State University's College of Veterinary Medicine will utilize its new large-animal and equine hospital for the first time this school year. The 105,000-square-foot addition to the teaching hospital houses surgery units, intensive care, treatment and isolation facilities. A new beef program has been added to the dairy and swine summer immersive experience for students to coincide with the new facility's grand opening. Plans for the expansion of small and companion animal facilities are under way.
• The University of Missouri-Columbia (MU) just opened the MU College of Veterinary Medicine Research Animal Diagnostic Laboratory (RADL) at Discovery Ridge. RADL is the second-largest research animal diagnostic laboratory in the world and the only one that is part of an academic institution. Discovery Ridge is three miles from the school's main Columbia campus.
• North Carolina State University is in the middle of construction of the Randall B. Terry Jr. Companion Animal Veterinary Medical Center at the school's College of Veterinary Medicine. The new medical center, double the size of the present facility, will offer imaging, cardiac care, cancer treatments, internal medicine and surgery when it opens in 2009.
• Texas A&M University's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences has broken ground on a $24 million expansion to its veterinary research building, which will increase research and laboratory space at the school. A new lameness area is near completion and a comprehensive cancer center and imaging facility is in the early planning stages.
• Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine will put its new Agnes Varis Campus Center into use this school year, following its completion last spring. The campus center, built on the Cummings School campus, houses student lounges, faculty offices, a fitness room, book store and cafeteria where veterinary students can gather. The center formerly was a historic brick building built in the early 1900s as a nurses' dormitory at the old Grafton State Hospital and was renovated with a $4 million gift from Dr. Agnes Varis, a longtime benefactor of the veterinary school and a member of the board of overseers and the Tufts board of trustees.
• The Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University continues construction on its new regional biosafety laboratory (RBL) in Grafton Science Park. The RBL will allow Tufts researchers to expand infectious and zoonotic disease research. The 37,950-square-foot facility will be owned and operated by Tufts, but is being built with the help of nearly $20 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health. The facility is expected to open in spring 2009, with most construction being complete by December 2008.
• Washington State University's College of Veterinary Medicine will be working toward the construction of a School for Global Animal Health following a $25 million gift from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The project is in the design phase. It will allow the school to expand its pathogen and disease-detection research, studies on zoonotics and vaccine development programs. Before moving forward, the school must raise an additional $10 million in matching gifts for the $35 million center, which will house laboratories, offices and meeting facilities.