As a former adjunct faculty member at Northern Kentucky University, I have been following the recent discussion about the community cats near Landrum Academic Center with interest.
At first glance, the issue appears practical: how should animals be managed on university property? Questions of liability, safety, and campus environment are real considerations. Universities, like all institutions, operate under constraint.
But universities are not merely property managers. They are formative spaces. They shape habits of mind — not only through curriculum, but through the way they respond to the unexpected, the inconvenient, and the complex.
Those of us who have worked directly in trap-neuter-vaccinate-return efforts know that community cats are not resolved through sentiment or speed. Territory matters. Stability matters. Managed coexistence, when done responsibly, reduces harm over time. Removal without long-term planning can create unintended consequences that ripple outward.
Yet beyond technique lies a broader question about institutional reflex.
Institutions — social, religious, and educational alike — can default to eliminating what feels inconvenient rather than engaging what is complex. That impulse is understandable. Complexity slows us down. It requires collaboration. It resists tidy resolution.
Universities, however, are places that claim to cultivate discernment. They exist to form people capable of thinking critically, weighing consequences, and living responsibly within systems larger than themselves. In moments like this, the issue is not simply whether a group of cats fits neatly within campus plans. It is what kind of response the situation calls forth.
Will it be reflexive subtraction? Or careful engagement?
Small decisions are rarely small in what they signal. A university teaches not only in lecture halls, but in how it handles tensions within its own community. Students are watching. Neighbors are watching. The habits practiced in one domain tend to echo in others.
Northern Kentucky has a long history of community members working patiently to address overpopulation through humane, collaborative methods. That work is not glamorous. It does not trend. But it reflects a commitment to stewardship rather than quick resolution. Universities are part of that civic fabric.
None of this denies that concerns exist or that responsible oversight is necessary. The question is how oversight is exercised — and what imagination guides it.
Institutions, like individuals, can act quickly to resolve what feels inconvenient. History often teaches us what we did not see in the moment. The question is not only how to solve a present concern, but what we may later wish we had handled differently.
Sherry Walton Kingston is a former adjunct faculty member at Northern Kentucky University and has been involved in community cat advocacy and community-based trap-neuter-vaccinate-return efforts in the region for more than a decade.