Pet-loving profs bring fun to business dept.

If there's one thing Nancy Sanderson and Barbara Freda want people to know, it's how much they love pets. A quick look into their Alfred Lerner Hall office reveals as much, as their walls are completely decorated with photos of beloved cats and dogs. Those photos aren't of just any cats and dogs, though - they're university cats and dogs.

Some time ago, Sanderson and Freda, both senior secretaries in the department of business education, put up photos of their pets on the walls of their office. Soon, members of the faculty were joining in. Now, they have 32 photos of pets on the wall, many more not yet hung and even more coming.

"I was a cat person when I came here," Freda said. "But when I met Nancy's dog, Peanut, I fell in love with him."

Freda would go on to find five dogs to welcome into her family, and each has a place on the wall, as well as her sixth pet, a cat. Originally, they only shared the wall with Peanut and Xander, Sanderson's dog and bunny, respectively, but that didn't last for too long.

"I had gotten Peanut from Dr. [Erwin] Saniga, and he wanted to put up photos of his dogs," Sanderson said. "Once we had all of those photos, we began to ask people in the department if they wanted to contribute their photos. The chair of the department gave us a photo of his dogs and cats. The former dean of the College of Business gave us photos of his daughter's dogs, Fenway and Cameron."

While many of the pets on the wall weren't technically those of university staff and students, they were still considered family. The list of contributors has grown, and every single photo has a story. Whether it is professor Stewart Shapiro's nine dogs, professor John Antil's playfully named cat "The Dude" or professor Robert Kent's mailman-biting canine, the wall is full of stories from university students and staff.

Business Administration professor Patrick McClelland, the most recent contributor to the wall, submitted a photo of his mischievous golden retriever, Cutter.

"I wanted to be a part of this ritual," McClelland said. "As a member of the community it's important to participate. I figured I should be included among all the beautiful dogs."

The goal of the wall is simple, according to Freda and Sanderson. The idea wasn't to catalogue pets, but simply to make a place for pet lovers to enjoy themselves.

"Pets bring joy," Freda said. "They make you happy. Especially in a business building, everything is too serious and we don't like it too serious. It's about learning and having fun."

Sanderson was quick to point out the therapeutic aspect of having so many friendly dogs surrounding them.

"Students come in angry, and the next thing you know, they're talking about their pets," she said.

Sanderson and Freda do not take these pets' ability to calm frustrated students lightly. They have found many other ways to contribute to the dog-loving community. They promote dog-friendly events by putting posters on their door, and were big fans of bring your pet to work day before it was cancelled.

Freda uses her pets for the benefit of the troops, the importance of which she knows with a son in the Marines. She carries around photos of her bulldog, Gunny, dressed in a uniform and passes them out to every U.S. soldier and family member that she meets, knowing that it will at least bring a smile to their face.

"We accept photos from pretty much everyone - we don't discriminate," Sanderson said. Quickly, though, Freda added, "As long as there are no people in them."

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