CMU needs resident cats. Point. Blank. Period. Animals are incredible additions to university environments, providing necessary enrichment and moral boosts to the variety of stressed out students who are often too busy with their work load and tests to fully decompress.
Just think back to your time at kindergarten. You had half an hour dedicated to frolicking on the playground, mandated nap time and best of all, many had a class pet. Why do we give the kids all kinds of cool stuff during the early days of their education? I think, as a society, we give too much too soon just to take it away when it really matters.
I’m just saying, I’d appreciate mandated nap time way more at 20 than I ever did at 4. But moreso, my days would be much brighter with a campus cat to keep us company in the classroom.
CMU doesn’t always have teacher assistants (TA’s) due to the small class sizes, so why not incorporate cat assistants to fill the gaps? It would be the ideal situation. Our small class sizes would help to not stress them out and in return, their presence would provide support and comfort to the dozens of stressed out students. Every cat I know would feel like Snoop Dogg in a dispensary if they were in a room full of warm laptop keyboards to nap on and an unlimited amount of hands to pet them at their disposal.
Attendance would skyrocket. There’s no way I’d skip a class if I knew I could learn about the powerhouse of the cell with Mr. Mittens resting peacefully on my lap.
There are other benefits to classroom cats beyond higher attendance rates, stress levels would also decrease significantly. In a randomized controlled trial done by Washington State University students Patricia Pendry and Jaymie L. Vandagriff, students who simply pet a cat before and during an exam had, on average, lower levels of salivary cortisol than that of the control group that did not have the honor of petting a cat.
In addition to their magic stress-relieving qualities, science proves that a cat’s purr can heal broken bones. In a study done by Elizabeth Von Muggenthaler for the New Zealand Veterinary Journal, domestic cats produce purrs at 25 Hz and 50 Hz, two frequencies that promote bone growth and healing. Similarly, these frequencies of purrs also help ease pain, muscle tension, wounds and dyspnea. Cats are nothing less than a fluffy miracle.
All I wish to express is that there is little harm in the matter of resident campus cats. They’re good for our health, boost morale and their inclusion would result in the plummeting of classroom absenteeism. There is nothing wrong with letting Princess Whiskers learn a little bit of physics, even if she would end up using it to take over the world.
