EVP Curriculum
Your Executive Leadership Journey
The program is not nine independent modules. It is one integrated leadership curriculum, delivered over five on-campus sessions and four off-site, industry-embedded sessions, where each module builds on the content and relationships established in the last.
| Theme | Format | Primary Growth Area | Secondary Growth Area |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Algorithm in the Barn | On-campus – Illinois | Leverage Technology | Think Strategically |
| Economics: Show Me the Money | On-campus – Illinois | Think Strategically | Lead |
| The Family Business | Off-site – Michigan: Dykhuis Family Farms (fixed) | Think Strategically | Expand Your Influence |
| PRRSv: The Virus That Never Stops Learning | On-campus – Illinois | Advance Swine Health | Think Strategically |
| PEDv: The Virus That Ate a Generation of Pigs | On-campus – Illinois | Advance Swine Health | Lead |
| The Body Under Pressure | Off-site – Kansas City (fixed) | Lead | Advance Swine Health |
| The Vet in the Room | On-campus – Illinois | Expand Your Influence | Lead |
| Truck to Table | Off-site – Pennsylvania: Hatfield/Country view (fixed) | Think Strategically | Advance Swine Health |
| Capstone Presentations | Off-site – Dallas/ Grapevine, Texas | Lead | Expand Your Influence |
The Learning Modules
The Algorithm in the Barn
On-campus — Illinois
Primary: Leverage Technology | Secondary: Lead
This session introduces the large language model and AI agent skills, along with the data platforms, now shaping precision production systems. Working with technology and data-platform partners from outside veterinary medicine, participants build a herd-health report workflow using these tools directly, rather than sitting through a conceptual overview. The goal is practical fluency: a working understanding of what these tools can do and how to put them to use, not just an introduction to the terminology.
Economics: Show Me the Money
On-campus — Illinois
Primary: Think Think Strategically | Secondary: Lead
This session builds financial fluency for veterinarians working in production systems. Participants learn to read and interpret financial statements, run cost-benefit and return-on-investment analysis on health interventions, and evaluate capital allocation decisions, working directly with financial leadership from a cooperative or production business. A sound clinical recommendation doesn’t get funded unless it also makes financial sense to the people paying for it, and this session teaches participants to make that case in the language ownership and finance actually use.
The Family Business
Off-site — Michigan: Dykhuis Family Farms (fixed)
Primary: Advance Swine Health | Secondary: Think Strategically
Conducted on-site at a family-owned swine production operation, this module examines the ownership and governance structures common to family agricultural businesses, including succession planning and the transition from founder-led to next-generation leadership. Participants read a family farm’s actual balance sheet and work through a simulated succession dispute, engaging directly with the operation’s ownership and leadership. Most swine operations, even large ones, are still governed as family businesses, and this session surfaces where a veterinarian is positioned in those ownership-level decisions, not just the clinical ones.
PRRSv: The Virus That Never Stops Learning
On-campus — Illinois
Primary: Advance Swine Health | Secondary: Think Strategically
This session goes deep on PRRS virus: viral genetics and antigenic evolution, transmission dynamics and biosecurity implications, economic impact modeling, and current vaccine strategy and control approaches. Participants work directly with researchers actively studying the virus, in virology and immunology, and leave with a working understanding of where the science currently stands, including its open questions, rather than a static protocol to memorize.
PEDv: The Virus That Ate a Generation of Pigs
On-campus — Illinois
Primary: Advance Swine Health | Secondary: Lead
This session examines PEDv: the epidemiology and hard lessons drawn from the original outbreak, biosecurity protocol design, crisis communication, and team leadership during an active outbreak, and the work of rebuilding herd health and production afterward. It treats a health crisis as both a technical and a leadership problem, pairing a response plan with the skill of holding a team together while an outbreak is still unfolding, not just once it’s over.
The Body Under Pressure
Off-site — Kansas City
Primary: Lead | Secondary: Advance swine Health
Held in Kansas City across four linked sessions, this module opens with a practicum in reading an animal’s condition and behavior before physical examination, taught through video critique with an observational-skills expert. A second session covers scope of practice and prescribing authority: what a veterinarian is legally and professionally permitted to do when working with a producer, and the trust or liability at stake in getting it right. A cross-species panel then examines stress physiology, recovery, and performance in both swine and veterinarians, comparing animal and human responses to occupational strain. The module closes with a forward-looking workshop on precision livestock technology and wearable sensors not yet in wide use in swine production. Together, the four sessions address the pressure the work puts on both the animal and the veterinarian.
The Vet in the Room
On-campus — Illinois
Primary: Expand Your Influence | Secondary: Lead
This session focuses on leadership and team-management skills, negotiation, and the development of a personal career plan, working with faculty who lead the program’s leadership and negotiation curriculum. It is built around the transition from technical expert to trusted advisor: the person whose judgment a room relies on, not just the person who executes the plan
Truck to Table
Off-site — Pennsylvania: Hatfield/Country View
Primary: Think Strategically | Secondary: Advance Swine Health
Conducted on-site at a processing operation, this module follows the supply chain from production through transport, processing, and retail, examining how a health or welfare decision made during production shows up, or gets hidden, several steps downstream. Participants get direct exposure to processing and retail operations, parts of the supply chain most production veterinarians never see firsthand.
Capstone presentations
Off-site — Dallas/Grapevine, Texas
Held at a pre-conference seminar during the AASV Annual Meeting, this module is the formal presentation of each participant’s two-year capstone project to the wider swine veterinary community. It stands as public proof of the systems-thinking and leadership work built over the course of the program, delivered to peers and industry rather than only to faculty.
A Cohort That Grows Together
Participants remain with the same cohort throughout the two-year program, unlike a traditional conference where attendance shifts session to session. As the curriculum progresses, so do the conversations among participants, who challenge one another, share experience, and build trust that extends beyond the classroom. Alumni frequently cite these relationships as one of the most valuable and enduring outcomes of the program.
The Executive Veterinary Program Experience
| You Begin As… | You Graduate As… |
|---|---|
| A skilled veterinarian | A trusted advisor |
| Focused on solving today’s problems | Prepared for tomorrow’s challenges |
| Focused on individual cases | Thinking in systems |
| Reacting to change | Leading innovation |
| An individual contributor | A leader and influencer |
| A participant | A lifelong member of the EVP alumni network |
The Executive Veterinary Program doesn’t change what you do—it changes the level at which you lead.