"FURRI" Friends on Campus

Kittens for All First-Year Students

1st year student Emily Hobbes and Lucy Lou

This fall, Schenectady County Community College students will get more than their textbooks and ID's on their first day. They’ll get kittens.


SCCC is proud to announce the Feline-Undergraduate Relationship for Retention Initiative, or FURRI. This innovative approach – the first of its kind in the nation – seeks to help each first-year student adjust to college life with the help of a furry friend.


“We encourage our incoming students to care about our campus, the community around us, and each other. Adding cats to the mix will simply enhance the expectation of civility, a sense of community and shared responsibility,” says Robyn King, Acting Director of Wellness and Support Services. 

“Also, research has shown that caring for an animal helps to reduce blood-pressure, stress how often one gets sick and increases focus and concentration."  All positive benefits for a college student.


King says she is excited to implement FURRI alongside the existing slate of new-student support programs.


"We seek to start our new students off strong at SCCC," King says."We have programs in place to ease the transition into college life, and the FURRI program provides a strong complement to those programs."


Kitten distribution will be seamlessly integrated into New Student Orientation. First-years will choose their new kittens in the Activity Forum in Elston Hall, which will be fully converted into the permanent home for the FURRI Program.

2nd year student Caitlin Garfield 

with Mister Wuffles

Students will select among a variety of kitten options, such as tabbies, torties and tigers. Thanks to a generous collaboration with the Animal Protective Foundation in Scotia, kittens as young as 8 weeks old will be available, as well as older cats for students who wish for a more mature feline companion.


For students unable to pick up their kittens during the FURRI office hours, the College store has graciously offered to combine kitten distribution with their textbook pick-up service.

For first-years who are allergic to cats or otherwise averse to kitten ownership, FURRI will offer hedgehogs, geckos and teacup pigs as pet alternatives.

“Whatever a student’s kitten or small-animal-related need, we'll meet it,” says Tom Katzen, volunteer FURRI program coordinator. “Our staff is prepared to answer questions, offer support and seek solutions.”


In conjunction with the FURRI program, staff from the SCCC Institutional Research office have spent the past year studying the effects of cat ownership on well-being, positive social behaviors and civility on campus. Their results so far indicate that kittens rank extremely high on the happiness to civility matrix .

To prepare for the full FURRI launch, a select group of SCCC students has been testing the kitten-ownership plan since Fall 2014.


“Having Mister Wuffles in my life has dramatically enhanced my college experience,” says Caitlin Garfield, a second year Paralegal student from Albany who lives in the Stockade. “I take him to basketball games, we hang out in the main lounge, we do everything together. Except for chemistry lab.”

Spader
(photo by Heathcliff Mew)

Heathcliff Meo of the Bronx, says caring for his grey tiger, Spader, has made his first year at the SCCC a success.


“Leaving home was a huge deal for me, and I had to leave my cat Sylvester behind. I wasn’t sure I was ready and was homesick from the first day here,” Meo says. “But once I got Spader, everything changed. SCCC feels more like home now.  I think this program is really great.”

Robyn King is eager to use the next few Fall semesters to gather more data regarding the well-being of student cat owners and their graduation rates compared to previous students who did not own a pet.  She plans to write a book based on her findings.

"I'm so excited about this venture.  The working title for my book is April Fools!" 



Gotcha.

 

 

Source:  http://www.uidaho.edu/newsevents/features/kittens-for-all
(c) Copyright 2015 Robyn M. King. All Rights Reserved.