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Hanging Out INTERNAL
Hanging Out
Photo by Bob Christy '9591˛Öżâ police dog Coco and her partner, Officer Anne Spahr, recently participated in a specialized training exercise at the climbing wall in 91˛Öżâ’s Student Recreation and Wellness Center, along with K-9 dogs from around the state—including 91˛Öżâ’s other police dog, Dexter, and his handler, Officer Miguel Witt.
The dogs were practicing in case they ever need to be flown by helicopter to an incident as part of a statewide response to a bomb threat. “It’s unlikely but possible, so we have to get the dogs ready,” says Spahr. “In addition, it builds trust and bonding between the dog and its handler. Coco did very well; she’s a confident dog.”
On a normal day, Coco—a three-year-old German Shepherd—is on patrol with Spahr around 91˛Öżâ, and they’re on call in case she’s needed anywhere in the state to sniff out explosives, search for evidence or track a missing person. It’s an active life, and Coco thrives on doing her job.
“She doesn’t enjoy her time off quite as much as I do,” laughs Spahr. “I usually have to take her out several times a day to play because she’s very energetic and high drive. These K-9 dogs don’t make good house pets because they bore easily and are always on the go. Coco loves to play ball; she’s absolutely ball obsessed. And she harasses our pet German shepherd, who likes to chill by the fire and sleep in. He’s trying to teach her to relax, but she’s not picking it up!”
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Hat Tip INTERNAL
Hat Tip
Photo by Bob Christy '95What do Willy Wonka, Fred Astaire and Mr. Peanut have in common? They all wear top hats—and they all were represented in a recent exhibit, What’s Real? Investigating Multimodality, which was created, designed and installed by a group of 40 students from the School of Visual Communication Design and the School of Library and Information Science in spring 2014.
Installed in the MuseLab, a 20-by-20-foot space on the third floor of the University Library where museum studies students can get hands-on experience, the collaborative exhibit focused on using four modes of interaction—sound, movement, touch and text—to explore the topic of a top hat.
Why a top hat? “It’s just one example of how an ordinary object can take on multiple new meanings when displayed in a museum context,” says Kiersten Latham, Ph.D., assistant professor at the School of Library and Information Science and curator of the MuseLab. “A top hat is more complex than you’d think!”
The exhibit ran from May to December; a new MuseLab exhibit, created by nine graduate students in a spring semester museum studies course, opens April 15. It’s related to The Big Read, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts that supports community reading programs and is based on characters in the novel Old School by Tobias Wolff.