The Lois B. Acheson Dean of Veterinary Medicine

Lois Bates Acheson, a 1937 business alumna, endowed the first chair in the College of Veterinary medicine as part of a $21 million bequest to the college in 2005. Acheson’s gift was the second largest gift ever made to Oregon State University.

During her lifetime, Acheson broke barriers in the business world. In 1948 at the age of 32, she became vice president of Black Ball Freight Service, during a time when women rarely held executive positions. She helped steer the freight carrier into new territory, constructing the ferry, the M.V. Coho, which runs between Port Angeles, WA and Victoria, B.C. When her husband, Robert Acheson, passed away in 1963, she took over the helm of the company. In 1975, she sold the trucking business to focus on the ferry system, which still runs today.

Lois Acheson had a life-long interest in animals and veterinary care. For many years, she built a scholarship fund to benefit OSU veterinary students. Acheson’s estate gift established the chair and also built the college’s endowment to ensure that quality veterinary education and research continues at OSU for many years to come. The College has renamed its teaching hospital, the Lois Bates Acheson Veterinary Teaching Hospital in her honor.

“She always attributed her business success to her educational experience at Oregon State University,” said Acheson’s niece Donna Schoen, ’56. “She would be pleased with the impact her gift will have on the continuing growth and development of the College of Veterinary Medicine.”

Cyril R. Clarke

Dr. Cyril R. Clarke Dr. Cyril Clarke became the inaugural Lois Bates Acheson Dean of Veterinary Medicine in 2007. He also serves as a professor in biomedical sciences and teaches pharmacology to veterinary students at OSU.

"Students need to understand the complexities of comparative biology and assume the responsibility for addressing the health needs of a variety of species, including the spread of disease between animals and humans," he said. "Research that benefits both human and animal health is also an important mission for universities, particularly Land Grant institutions."

Initially educated in South Africa, Dr. Clarke began his professional career in that country working in under-developed areas treating large and small animals, advising farmers, and developing vaccination and parasite control programs. He went on to earn his Ph.D. in pharmacology at Louisiana State University before moving to Oklahoma State, where he worked in a variety of capacities for 19 years—most recently as associate dean for academic affairs for the Center for Veterinary Health Sciences. He also headed the university's Department of Physiological Sciences within its College of Veterinary Medicine for several years.

Funded by corporate, state, and federal agencies, Dr. Clarke's research focused on interactions between antibacterial agents, pharmacokinetic dispositional processes, and host defense responses to bacterial infection. He serves as a Councilor of the American Academy of Veterinary Pharmacology and Therapeutics and is a past president of the American College of Veterinary Clinical Pharmacology.