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The campus community will once again have the chance to attend the campus dog show noon-2 p.m. Wednesday, May 2 on the Quad.
Dogs and their student, faculty, and staff owners will have the chance to mingle with the rest of the campus community. Also in attendance will be volunteers from local animal advocate groups, including Lehigh Valley K9 Therapy and First State Greyhound Rescue. The dog show is sponsored by students in The Dog Course.
The Dog Course, a Values and Science/Technology (VAST) class, challenges students to examine America’s most popular pet from literary, philosophical, archeological, biological, and technological perspectives.
Patricia Donahue, professor of English, and Bianca Falbo, assistant professor of English, each teach a section. They often combine activities, including the campus dog show at the end of the semester, allowing students in both sections to work together. Students participate in a variety of assignments and activities to deepen their understanding of dogs while sharpening their analytical and writing skills.
VAST courses are writing-intensive interdisciplinary classes that incorporate approaches from the natural and social sciences, humanities, and/or arts in a fundamental way. Each course examines a topic, problem, or issue sufficiently large and complex that there is more than one way needed to look at it. The program’s goal is to help students see and understand science as a functioning part of their daily social world.