Kittens to Collages, Poetry to Puzzles: CC Faculty Find COVID Lifelines By Leslie Weddell
We asked the CC faculty what got them through COVID. Was it nesting with Netflix? Huddling with Hulu? Did they hold quarantined concerts? Were they burgeoning bakers? It turns out, CC faculty members used the past year and a half in ways they might not have otherwise.
Among her “purrfectly” named kittens were the O-Chem brothers, named after organic chemists Markovnikov, Friedel, and Crafts. Her students in Block 1, who had just covered acid-base chemistry, helped her name the next set: Sir Lowry (an orange tabby) and Professor Bronsted (a tuxedo with a goatee). The Curies came next (Marie, Pierre, and Irene); a Siamese-mix trio. From top to bottom are the O-Chem brothers, Markovnikov, Crafts, and Friedel, named after the organic chemists. Marie, Irene, and Pierre Curie: Counter-clockwise are Marie (chocolate point), Irene (laying down, lilac point), and Pierre (white strip on nose).
Fostering Kittens Associate Professor and Chair of the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department Habiba Vaghoo fostered kittens with Happy Cats Haven. “I had been wanting to do it for a long time and when we were forced to stay home, it seemed like the perfect time,” she says.
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Photos courtesy Habiba Vaghoo
She started with two kittens — and ended up fostering a total of 20 abandoned felines. Vaghoo would foster them for about five to six weeks, making sure the kittens were healthy and gaining weight. They would then be spayed or neutered, and go up for adoption at Happy Cats Haven.
After a short break, Vaghoo started again with Peppa and George, who came from North Carolina. In Block 6 when she was teaching Structure of Organic Molecules, she held a naming contest for the three kittens she’d just received, with the student who came up with the winning names receiving a beaker mug. At last writing, she was fostering five feral kittens who were found in an abandoned Chevy. All the kittens Vaghoo fostered went back to the shelter for adoption — except two. O-Chem brother Markovnikov was adopted by Associate Professor and Chair of the Anthropology Department Christina Leza. And Vaghoo kept Marie Curie, the foster fail (or success, depending on how you look at it).
