The University of Mississippi Career Center partnered with Second Chance Animal Alliance and Students for Sustainable Fashion to host the Canines, Careers and Cookies event on Tuesday, Oct. 15 on the Martindale-Cole lawn.
Students were invited to play with shelter dogs and enjoy free loaded teas and cookies. Career Center staff answered questions and talked about their upcoming fall events.
Project Manager for the School of Business Sital Sign and Liz Dixon, education and training specialist for the Institute of Child Nutrition, are volunteers for Second Chance Animal Alliance and worked with the Career Center to organize the event.
“It’s a fun way to destress in the middle of the semester when everybody’s burnt out and to come learn a little bit more about careers,” Dixon said.
Sign and Dixon brought six shelter dogs and their halloween costumes to the event.
“It gets the dogs out and socialized,” Sign said. “We get great pictures, we get to learn a little more about their personalities outside the shelter, and we get to see a whole different side of the dogs.”
The Second Chance Animal Alliance is a no-kill shelter for dogs and cats located in Water Valley, Miss. Sign shared that participating in on-campus events is extremely important for the shelter.
Along with recruiting volunteers and advertising foster programs, the events have helped many dogs find homes. This was the second time the shelter partnered with the Career Center.
Meadow Cooper, a freshman biology major, attended the event with her friend Memmah Ibrahim, a freshman pharmacy major, after seeing a flier in an email.
“It’s nice to get out of the library and actually be outside with the animals,” Cooper said.
She and Ibrahim agreed the event was a welcome break from midterm stress, and they would recommend other students to attend similar events.
Cooper said she would now consider taking a dog out of the shelter for a day with Second Chance’s program.
Ibrahim said she was not a dog person before the event, but she is now warming up to them.
“It was fun, when they didn’t lick,” Ibrahim said.
Anne York, a senior real estate and marketing major, founded Students for Sustainable Fashion and worked with her thesis adviser, Christy Wright, assistant director of employer services, to set up the event.
“It’s a wellness event for everybody to hang out with dogs, have fun and also get involved with the Career Center,” York said.
York is working on a thesis about sustainable fashion, and she collected used harnesses, leashes and other dog accessories during the event. She founded Students for Sustainable Fashion last year and plans to hold several more fundraisers later this year.
“On campus, there’s a lot of Zara culture, Shein culture, and it was important to me to start something that would counteract that and raise awareness for sustainable fashion,” York said.
