Goat-Assisted Wellness & Education for the Whole Academic Community
A semester-based wellness program for students, faculty, and staff — in person, online, and hybrid.
GAWE combines goat-assisted experiences, digital wellness check-ins, reflection, and program evaluation across the academic term.
How GAWE Grew From the Classroom Into a Campus-Wide Wellness Program
GAWE began by bringing goats into traditional classrooms, expanded into virtual learning and university wellness events, and now asks the next natural question:
How can GAWE support an entire university community across the rhythm of an academic term?
Wellness Should Not Begin and End With One Event
Universities already invest in student wellness, faculty and staff well-being, belonging, engagement, retention, and mental-health support.
But many wellness experiences are still event-based, location-dependent, or disconnected from the rhythm of the academic term.
A single wellness event can create a meaningful moment. GAWE is designed to carry that moment forward.
Students:
Need ongoing support for stress, belonging, connection, transition, and academic pressure.
Faculty & Staff:
Need opportunities for renewal, boundaries, morale, connection, and recovery.
Online & Hybrid Communities:
Need wellness support that reaches them even when they are not physically on campus.
What Is GAWE?
GAWE — Goat-Assisted Wellness & Education — is a sanctuary-informed, non-clinical wellness and education model designed for academic environments.
GAWE combines structured goat-assisted experiences, digital wellness content, reflection, and experiential learning to support a flourishing academic environment.
At the center of the framework are three interconnected outcomes:
BELONGING
Connection, inclusion, confidence, and the ability to participate without constant pressure to perform.
TRUST
Observation, communication, consent, boundaries, confidence, and respectful relationship.
RENEWAL
Opportunities to pause, regulate, reflect, reconnect, and return with greater presence.
Belonging, Trust, and Renewal support Student Wellness, Faculty & Staff Wellness, and Community Wellness — working together toward a flourishing academic environment.
The Goats Are Not the Tools. They Are the Teachers of the Tools.
GAWE is not a petting zoo, entertainment program, or casual animal visit.
The goats help make wellness concepts visible, memorable, and experiential.
BOUNDARIES
A goat walking away is communication, not rejection.
OBSERVATION
A hesitant goat teaches us to watch before assuming.
CONSENT
Connection is invited, not forced.
CO-REGULATION
A calm interaction can help make presence and settling visible.
Through GAWE, participants practice presence, pause, observation, breath awareness, body awareness, consent, boundaries, perspective-taking, sensory grounding, co-regulation, reflection, meaning-making, and ethical relationship.
A Semester-Based Wellness Experience
GAWE is designed to follow the rhythm of the academic term.
Our full model is built around a traditional 15-week semester, but the program can be adapted to shorter academic calendars while preserving the same core framework.
15 Weeks
Full semester sequence
12 Weeks
Condensed sequence
8 Weeks
Combined thematic modules
6 Weeks
Accelerated wellness cycle
4 Weeks
Intensive GAWE format
Across every format, GAWE remains centered on Belonging, Trust, and Renewal, supported by the academic themes Regulate, Learn, and Respect.
What Participants Experience
GAWE is designed to fit into the academic week without becoming another class, assignment, or lengthy training.
Participants receive brief wellness experiences throughout the term that connect goat behavior and GAWE practices to everyday academic and personal wellness.
WEEKLY WELLNESS CHECK-INS
Short digital touchpoints focused on stress, belonging, connection, reflection, and renewal.
GOAT-ASSISTED CONTENT
Brief videos, photos, and stories that make concepts such as boundaries, consent, observation, and regulation visible.
REFLECTION & PRACTICE
Journaling prompts, short surveys, grounding exercises, mantras, and simple wellness practices.
LIVE & VIRTUAL EXPERIENCES
Campus goat visits and optional virtual GAWE experiences that reinforce the semester framework.
Built for Students, Faculty, and Staff
GAWE uses one shared wellness framework across the academic community, while allowing the application to shift based on the needs of each group.
STUDENTS
Stress awareness, belonging, connection, academic pressure, transition, boundaries, self-awareness, and renewal.
FACULTY
Workload, burnout prevention, classroom presence, professional boundaries, connection, reflection, and renewal.
STAFF
Morale, workplace connection, stress awareness, boundaries, recovery, reflection, and renewal.
The framework stays consistent. The wellness application changes with the audience.
Designed for Traditional, Online, and Hybrid Universities
GAWE is designed to reach people wherever they learn or work.
A university community may include residential students, commuters, online learners, graduate students, remote employees, and multiple campuses. GAWE does not require every participant to be physically present with the goats in order to engage with the framework.
TRADITIONAL CAMPUS
Live goat-assisted experiences, wellness check-ins, reflection, and semester-based programming integrated into the campus environment.
ONLINE & HYBRID
Digital GAWE content, short wellness check-ins, reflection prompts, goat videos, and optional live virtual experiences.
MULTI-CAMPUS & REMOTE
A shared GAWE framework that can extend across locations while preserving consistent wellness themes and program structure.
Wellness should not depend on where someone happens to learn or work.
How GAWE Fits Into the University
GAWE is designed to complement existing university wellness, student success, faculty/staff well-being, and engagement efforts rather than replace them.
The institution decides where GAWE fits best, who it serves, and how it is integrated into the academic term
STUDENT WELLNESS
Support for stress, belonging, connection, transition, engagement, and renewal across the academic term.
FACULTY & STAFF WELLNESS
Opportunities for reflection, boundaries, morale, connection, regulation, and recovery.
ONLINE & HYBRID SUPPORT
Wellness programming that reaches students and employees who may never be physically present on campus.
STUDENT SUCCESS & ENGAGEMENT
A framework that can support belonging, persistence, connection, and meaningful participation within the broader academic environment.
GAWE provides the framework. The university determines the implementation.
GAWE can be integrated through Student Affairs, wellness, Human Resources, online learning, student success, or other institutional units based on the university’s structure.
Possible Implementation Models
Campus-wide wellness initiative
First-year or incoming student programming
Faculty/staff wellness programming
Online learner support
Student-success initiatives
Residence life programming
Finals and de-stress support
Annual wellness refreshers
Targeted populations or cohorts
Multi-campus implementation
Population-Based Institutional Pricing
GAWE is designed to scale with the university community it serves.
Institutional pricing is based on the number of covered students, faculty, and/or staff and the structure of the academic term.
This allows GAWE to work across colleges and universities of different sizes without forcing every institution into the same flat-rate package.
COVERED POPULATION
Pricing reflects the number of students, faculty, and/or staff included in the program.
ACADEMIC TERM
GAWE can be structured around traditional semesters, accelerated terms, and other academic calendars.
INSTITUTIONAL IMPLEMENTATION
Final pricing reflects the population covered and the agreed program structure.
GAWE uses a scalable institutional model rather than one-size-fits-all pricing.
Why GAWE?
GAWE was created by Cora Moore, an educational and animal psychologist, college professor, course designer, and founder of Faeryland’s Farm Menagerie.
The program grew from years of experience teaching in both traditional and online higher education, along with direct observation of how goat-assisted experiences changed the learning environment.
GAWE first developed through classroom-based goat interaction, then expanded into virtual learning and university wellness and de-stress events. That progression led to the next natural question:
How can GAWE support students, faculty, and staff across an entire academic term?
GAWE is built around a structured wellness framework and includes opportunities for anonymous feedback, engagement tracking, and aggregate program evaluation so institutions can better understand how participants are responding over time. Existing GAWE findings are treated as promising program-evaluation evidence rather than final causal research conclusions. GAWE_Academic_Framework_Packet
Animals first. Always.
Explore What GAWE Could Look Like at Your University
Semester-based wellness for students, faculty, and staff — in person, online, and hybrid.
GAWE is designed to adapt to your institution’s academic calendar, covered population, wellness priorities, and existing support structure.
Start the conversation and explore how GAWE could fit within your university community.
Institutional pricing and implementation recommendations are provided based on your university’s population and academic-term structure.