Andrea Bailey, Instructor in Biology
Bailey lives in Johnson Hall with four parakeets, two guinea pigs, two koi fish, and a quaker parrot named Tenzin.
Tenzin’s probably got the most personality of anyone. She really likes if you [make a sound] like [music] at a club. She dances. She’s always doing it, trying to get my attention, so if I’m in the kitchen, and I look over at her, she immediately starts doing it because she thinks that’s our thing… These two [parakeets] are a pair. Both were found on campus at different times. [One] was found two summers ago. I said I would take her, so I went to the [Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] (MSPCA) and got three other birds so she could have a flock. This [other] one was found last winter, also on campus, near the [Cochran Bird Sanctuary]… so half the [parakeets] here are birds who had just escaped from somebody nearby.
Nick Zufelt, Instructor in Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science
A house counselor in Stevens Hall, Zufelt is the proud owner of Yoshi the goldendoodle.
Video games are a big deal in my family. My kids love Nintendo, I love Nintendo. We could never get my wife to play video games except for Mario Kart. It’s the one game we can get her to play. I can’t remember for sure, but I’m pretty sure the character that she likes to play is Yoshi the dinosaur. Then also Yoshi is a common nickname in Japanese, and I started learning Japanese several years ago with Shimazu-sensei here on campus, so it’s also a little bit of a call to Japanese as well. Sometimes we call him Yoshi-san… Yoshi is fantastically food-motivated… I had to reward him each time with a treat in order to get him to learn how to play fetch, which I thought was pretty funny. No amount of play excitement is ever a reward for him. He likes playing, but he would much, much rather eat food.
Stephanie Cormier, Director of Student Activities
A former worker for the MSPCA, Cormier now lives on a farm with two dogs, two cats, a horse, a pony, two cows, and a pig.
Outside the house… we have Buster the pig. He’s an 800-pound Hampshire pig. I used to work at the MSPCA in Methuen, and he was found as a stray when he was young. He lived there for about eight years, until [my husband and I] bought a farm and promised him a home. So, I brought him home on my last day of work… He’s very sweet, very smart. He sits for snacks, rolls over for belly rubs. In the barn, we have a horse Tootsie, she’s a retired racehorse, and a pony… We also have two cows, who are working livestock and provide milk… They also are spoiled rotten and love their scratches and apples and being brushed regularly. Peg, [one of the cows], is a bit of a diva. If she doesn’t get her feed the way she wants it, with molasses and sweet feed, she’ll scream moo at me until I give her what she wants.
Brian Faulk, Instructor in Chemistry
A house counselor in Taylor Hall, Faulk is the proud owner of “Winston Furhill” the goldendoodle.
His name is “Winston Furhill.” He’s eight months old, [and] he’s a goldendoodle. I wanted to name him after a famous person. I had just gotten back from a trip to England and went to the Churchill Museum. It’s called the Churchill war room in London, and I was intrigued and it felt like a good name. He very much likes to greet students on the pathway in the quad. My family was the driving force behind the dog, [and] he’s very talented.
Marissa Schwalm, Instructor in English
Schwalm lives in Nathan Hale House with her dog Janice and two cats, Mrs. Lovett and Bavette.
Mrs. Lovett sleeps on my daughter’s head… She follows Meryl, my daughter, around, and knows in the morning that she needs to go to school, so she’ll sit on her so [Meryl] can’t get up and do things. She’s really taken to my daughter a lot. She also likes sitting on top of my son when I feed him bottles. She just loves babies, which is funny because she was living under what they call the slaughterhouse and sneaking out to grab little things. It’s a beautiful story to think about, how much she’s gotten to love being inside and being with people. Her daughter, Bavette, whom we had first, is twice the size of her… [Bavette] has what I call ‘pretty privilege,’ when people see her they [gasp] because she’s so pretty and fluffy and her tail is really majestic.
