Kittens will be taking up residence in the Margaret L. Wendt Animal Behavior Laboratory in Science Hall on Monday, March 27 and the campus community is invited to view training and enrichment sessions. In cooperation with the SPCA of Erie Country, Miranda K. Workman’s ABEC 220: Animal Learning class is welcoming the kittens for enrichment and training. The sessions will include teaching the kittens to walk into a carrier on their own and complete a small agility course, which makes them attractive adoption candidates and encourages positive relationships with humans that will help the kittens transition to their new families. Stress and anxiety attached to the act of catching and putting cats in a carrier is a major reason why cats are seen less often at the veterinarian. For these kittens there will be no stress or anxiety, as they will choose to enter the carrier by themselves! The kittens will be on campus until Friday, May 5.

This is the third year that the college is partnering with the SPCA. Each year, all of the kittens have been adopted.

Workman, clinical assistant professor of animal behavior (ABEC) and anthrozoology, invites faculty, staff and students to stop by during the following times:

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays – 8:00 a.m. – 8:50 a.m.

Tuesdays and Thursdays – 8:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.

Every day (Sunday – Saturday) – 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Interested in adopting a kitten? Email Workman at workmanm@canisius.edu for adoption information.

Watch a video of last year’s kittens during training and enrichment here.

Submitted by: College Communications

On Monday March 27, two guest speakers will discuss the relations between the United States, Mexico and Canada from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. in Science Hall Room 1013.

Troy Lundblad is a staff and research representative with United Steelworkers – Canada and works on Canada’s approach to “continentalism” with the U.S. and Mexico.

Stuart Schussler previously worked many years with the Mexico Solidarity Network, leading U.S. university student groups to Mexico to learn from social movements there, including peasant organizations in central Mexico and urban squatter organizations in Mexico City.

Lundblad and Schussler will also discuss the failure of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), from the perspective of progressive labor.

The event is co-sponsored by Peace Action-Canisius, the Western New York Peace Center and its Latin American Solidarity Committee taskforce.

Submitted by: Terrence Bisson, PhD, professor, Mathematics and Statistics