As a third-year veterinary student at MSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine, I consider myself an advocate for the health and welfare of animals. That being said, I find it alarming that MSU is hosting the Animals & Society Institute Fellowship Program (Human-animal program selects MSU as host, SN 6/5).

While the program’s academic goals of exploring the interactions between animals and human culture are worthwhile, it should be noted that the Animals & Society Institute is a thinly veiled animal rights organization. This institute’s positions include such extremist stances as the elimination of zoos and hunting. The institute also opposes many agricultural and research practices, some of which occur at MSU, that provide the world with safe, affordable food, and promote advances in medicine that may save millions of human and animal lives.