Penn Vet names 2026 SAVMA Student Teaching Award honorees: full analysis

Penn Vet’s annual SAVMA Student Teaching Awards again put student voice at the center of veterinary education recognition, with the 2026 ceremony honoring faculty, residents, interns, nurses, and students selected by the student body. The April 10 event, announced April 14, named Susan Bender as recipient of the Zoetis Distinguished Veterinary Teacher Award and Jessie Cathcart as the William B. Boucher Award honoree for outstanding teaching at New Bolton Center. (vet.upenn.edu)

The awards reflect a long-running Penn Vet tradition. In 2024, the school used the same student-selected format to recognize teaching across lecture, lab, and clinical environments, underscoring that this is not a one-off recognition program but an established mechanism for students to identify the educators and care teams shaping their training. The 2026 awards also arrived amid a broader season of teaching recognition at Penn, where educational excellence has been publicly emphasized across the university and within Penn Vet itself. (vet.upenn.edu)

This year’s award list was notably broad. In addition to the two headline honors, Penn Vet recognized class-specific teaching awards for V’29, V’28, V’27, and V’26 students. Honorees included Rose Nolen-Walston and George McClung for the V’29 class, Kimberly Agnello and Jolie Demchur for V’28, Ariel Mosenco and Liz Arbittier for V’27, and Marc Kraus and Mary Jane Drake for V’26. Students also recognized residents, interns, and nurses across Ryan Hospital and New Bolton Center, along with senior veterinary students for patient care and SAVMA club programming for wellness and community impact. (vet.upenn.edu)

The campus context adds another layer. Penn Vet operates across Ryan Hospital in Philadelphia and New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, giving students exposure to both companion-animal and large-animal medicine. Penn says Ryan handles more than 30,000 patient visits annually, while New Bolton Center sees more than 6,300 hospital visits and thousands of farm service calls. That makes these awards a snapshot of teaching performance across very different clinical environments, from referral hospital services to field-based food animal and equine work. (vet.upenn.edu)

There’s also some evidence that these student-selected honors can foreshadow wider recognition. Penn Vet noted in late April that Kimberly Agnello’s most recent honor before receiving a university-level Lindback teaching award was the 2026 SAVMA Class of 2028 Lecture Teaching Award. That doesn’t mean every SAVMA honoree will move on to institutional or national awards, but it does suggest student voting can identify educators whose impact is visible beyond a single ceremony. More broadly, SAVMA and other academic veterinary groups continue to frame teaching awards as a way to recognize educators who materially influence student development and professional formation. (vet.upenn.edu)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the story isn’t just who won. It’s what the award structure says about veterinary training priorities. Penn’s 2026 results reinforce that students value teaching in many forms: clear lectures in the preclinical years, hands-on lab instruction, effective clinical supervision, strong nursing support, and mentorship from residents and interns who often do the day-to-day teaching on hospital floors. In a workforce environment where veterinary education is under pressure to prepare graduates efficiently while supporting wellbeing and retention, student-selected recognition can offer schools a practical feedback signal about where teaching is working. (vet.upenn.edu)

The inclusion of wellness and community-event awards is also notable. By recognizing a Latinx Veterinary Medical Association mocktail event and an MLK Day vaccination and wellness clinic, Penn Vet’s SAVMA chapter tied teaching culture to community building and student support, not only to formal coursework. That broader definition of educational environment is increasingly relevant as veterinary colleges compete on student experience as much as curriculum design. (vet.upenn.edu)

What to watch: The next question is whether Penn Vet leverages these student-selected results in faculty development, promotion narratives, and future institutional honors, especially as the Gail P. Riepe Center for Advanced Veterinary Education is slated to open at New Bolton Center in summer 2026 and could further elevate the school’s teaching infrastructure. (almanac.upenn.edu)