VCOM View Vol 10 No 1

TIMELINE of VCOM-LOUISIANA May 2018 The College received its initial license from the University of Louisiana Board of Regents to establish the branch campus at the University of Louisiana Monroe (ULM) September 18, 2018 Groundbreaking Ceremony April 25, 2019 First Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation (COCA) meeting in Chicago for the proposed VCOM- Louisiana campus June 6, 2019 Received initial approval from COCA to recruit students for the Louisiana branch campus June 2019 Began accepting applications for the Class of 2024 September 27, 2019 First day of interviews for prospective students for the Class of 2024 February 10, 2020 Moved out of ULM’s Sandel Hall offices and into new VCOM-Louisiana campus building March 12, 2020 COCA’s first site visit April 24, 2020 First VCOM-Louisiana Advisory Board Meeting held by videoconference May 22, 2020 Accepted Students Day (Virtual Event) July 7, 2020 New student welcome and drive-thru event July 13, 2020 First day of classes (conducted online) due to COVID-19 restrictions. August 10, 2020 First day of on-campus classes August 14, 2020 New student welcome luncheon

“ Structured after successful VCOM partnerships with Virginia Tech and Auburn University, the public/private partnership with ULM would incur no cost for the state of Louisiana.”

History of the New Campus

W hile construction of the physical campus of VCOM-Louisiana over the past two years has created substantial buzz on the campus of ULM and the community and region beyond, the internal buzz at VCOM began much earlier. Word of VCOM’s mission to bring physicians to rural and medically underserved communities in Appalachia and its unique program spread far and wide among the medical community and soon reached the state of Louisiana. It wasn’t long before Nick Bruno, PhD, President of the University of Louisiana Monroe (ULM) in Monroe, Louisiana, heard about the College’s high success rate. Bruno, a long-time advocate for a medical school on the campus of ULM, saw a partnership with VCOM as the

perfect way to expand the medical offerings available at his university. However, the timing wasn’t right for VCOM and they declined the opportunity initially, due in large part to the opening of the College’s third branch in Auburn, Alabama. Bruno continued to search for a medical school partnership for ULM. Despite some promising options, nothing ever came to fruition. That is, until the summer of 2017 when all the pieces finally fell into place for a partnership between VCOM and ULM. The Delta is one of the most impoverished and underserved areas of the country. As such, it was a prime location for the College to further its mission. VCOM founder and Chairman John G. Rocovich Jr., JD,

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