A student pets a pooch during 2019's Barks at Parks, where dogs joing Iowa State students as a fun strategy for relieving stress during prep week. Photo by Christopher Gannon.
This academic year marks the 10th anniversary of the first Barks at Parks, when certified therapy dogs come to Parks Library's upper rotunda for some attention -- but really to help students relax during prep week. The dogs will return this semester from April 29 to May 3.
The therapy dogs first visited Parks in the fall of 2014, but the event did not receive its name, Barks at Parks, until May 2015. Brendan Finan, then a sophomore computer engineering student, submitted the name during a Facebook contest. The pandemic suspended the event for three semesters: spring and fall 2020 and spring 2021.
