How to Feed the Chestnut Pond Geese

Geese crossing rowan university campus in front of chestnut

Zheniah stands under a cherry blossom tree at Rowan University with shadows obscuring her faceToday, we feature an interesting take on Rowan University through the eyes of Zheniah Houston, a sophomore public relations major from Los Angeles, California. Zheniah produced this blog post as part of a hands-on learning experience in her Introduction to Public Relations class with Professor Cristin Kastner Farney. The assignment gives students the opportunity to produce real work (not just “homework”) and a tangible writing sample for their portfolio.

Rowan University boasts a beautiful pond right in front of Chestnut Hall and, late in the spring semester, you will see Canadian geese and their babies swimming in the pond. And if you’re anything like me you’re always looking for opportunities to recreate cliche movie scenes with your friends, so what’s more cliche than an old lady feeding the birds in the park? Nothing, exactly. So I am here to give you three steps for feeding the birds here on Rowan University’s campus:

1. DO NOT DO IT!

2. IF YOU SEE A BABY GOOSE AVOID EYE CONTACT NO MATTER HOW CUTE THEY ARE!

3. AND IF THEY CHASE YOU … RUN!!!!

rowan university student outside chestnut halls pondIt was my freshman year when my life flashed before my eyes. Two friends of mine walked with me to the nearby discount grocery store Save-A-Lot to buy a loaf of bread and we were all excited to feed the baby geese outside our dorm room. We all got camera-ready to show our parents back home how happy we finally are after we escaped to college and being by ourselves for the first time. I volunteered to go first … I didn’t even get close to the baby geese before I was chased all the way back to my dorm door.

So if there’s any advice I can give you to survive college is to know who really owns the campus: the Canadian Geese.

Editor’s note: The Humane Society reminds people that feeding duck and geese bread isn’t only unhealthy for the birds, it’s actually dangerous for them. This food act as junk food which inhibits wing growth, called “angel wing syndrome”, making the young animals permanently unable to fly. If you love the Rowan geese and ducks like we do, feed them healthier foods.

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Story by Zheniah Houston, Los Angeles, California
Sophomore public relations major, Africana studies minor

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