HABRI Central

In most situations, animals are not allowed on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) campus, including animals used for animal-assisted activities (AAA). Animal-assisted activities have been shown to provide numerous benefits to participants and there could be positive effects to offering AAA at UNL. In order to gauge the opinions of students regarding AAA and how AAA could best be implemented on the UNL campus, a survey was emailed to Animal Science majors and students enrolled in ASCI 271 and ASCI 321 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A request to participate was also included in the weekly College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources email. Survey results indicated that students were very positive to the idea of AAA being offered at UNL, with 87.5% of respondents stating that AAA should be offered at UNL. Many of the respondents indicated that they thought AAA would be very beneficial to students and 77.6% of respondents said that they would attend AAA if they were offered on campus. Based on the survey results, AAA should at least be offered during midterms and dead week to maximize benefits. However, AAA could be offered year-round for little additional cost and it would have the potential to greatly improve students’ quality of life.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

1. Animal-assisted activities
2. open access
3. Universities and Colleges