Maggie Collett, graduate fellow for student life and Leadership at Southwestern, is hoping to relieve the stress and anxiety that goes along with finals for students at Southwestern College.  Collett has teamed up with the Cowley County Humane Society to bring dogs on campus.

“I really like dogs and supporting the humane society plus studies show that spending time with animals lowers blood pressure and stress so I thought finals week was a perfect time to make it a collaborative effort,” Collett says.

Suzanne Nally from the Cowley County Humane Society, brought four dogs to the Southwestern College student center on Tuesday, Dec. 9, and Wednesday, Dec. 10, for four hours each day.  Students, along with faculty and staff, could come to the student center and pet, play, and walk the dogs.  

“This is great for the dogs too,” Nally says. “They get to play and socialize and socialization is good for them.  They get to play with the students along with the other dogs.  The students have so much energy; it is good for the dogs to be around them.”

Nally says that all of the dogs that were brought to Southwestern are ready to be adopted.

Collett first came up with the idea when she was a student at Southwestern.  It was her senior Leadership project.

“When I first came up with the idea I talked to Teresa Harden at the humane society.  I was worried that she wouldn’t like the idea but it turned out that she was even more excited about it than I was which was really cool,” Collett says. 

This is the third time that Collett has been able to schedule the dogs to come onto the Southwestern College campus and she says the feedback has been 99% positive.

“I have done surveys and all the students think it’s great,” she says.

Senior Lauren Strain says that she really enjoys this event.

“I think this is such a cool event, it’s fun to see students who don’t know that this is going on and when they come by and see dogs in the window, they automatically come in,” Strain says.  “I wish I could adopt all of these dogs and put them in my dorm room but I think that is against the rules.”