Most students leave their pets at home when traveling to college, while others bring their pets with them for emotional support or service needs. While these pets have unique needs, they can aid in making a student’s college journey slowly feel like home itself.
The Drake University “Service and Assistance Animals and Residence Code of Conduct” policy prohibits all pets in the residence hall except fish in residence halls. Service animals, which are trained to perform tasks for an individual with disability, are permitted. Emotional Support Animals can be approved as a reasonable accommodation for students with documented disability, but are restricted to university housing and require prior approval.
Joy Clark is in her second year studying occupational therapy and is a doctoral candidate. Clark has an emotional support animal and described her experience as “working just like a team” because of her routine of having “all my classes in one place” and taking care of her ESA at the same time…