Rubber ducks on campus

All across campus, tiny, colorful ducks can be seen hiding on the trim in the library, among the plants at the Student Union and occasionally hidden in the dorms. This leaves many students wondering where these ducks keep coming from. It was finally deduced that the Student Health and Counseling Center — or SHCC — are the ones supplying the ducks.

While tabling, SHCC staff were handing out duck keychains identical to the mystery ducks. Michelle Bach, the office and fiscal manager for SHCC, stated that the ducks are commonly given out at promotional events such as tabling and are all over the SHCC office.

Hannah Boron, a peer health educator explained that they are the duck suppliers, but not the duck distributors. It is UAA students that are hiding them across campus.

Different themes of ducks can be found across campus, such as nurse ducks, devil ducks and graduation ducks, which can be seen at the Kaladi Brothers and Seawolf Grounds checkout counters.

Summer Sweet, the health promotion specialist, emailed more information regarding the ducks. “This year we thought it would be fun to incorporate rubber ducks into our programming to get the attention of students and give out fun swag,” she said.

Sweet said the different themes are used for different months such as September Suicide Awareness Month, October Domestic Violence Month, and Halloween.

She explained, “Students have seemed to enjoy them and have obviously recognized our Health Promotion Team as the providers of the ducks, and this is what we hope to do — provide awareness to these topics.”

Richie Baldwin, a barista at Seawolf Grounds, explained how they got their little graduation duck who sits in front of their PMS machine.

Baldwin said it showed up last semester and was left mysteriously on their countertop. Since then they haven’t received any more ducks to add to the collection.

Baldwin also said the VA Alaska Health Care System has similar ducks around their offices.

Another barista at the Kaladi Brothers located at the Social Sciences Building said their ducks are from a customer who had the idea of spreading them around campus. The Kaladi Brothers also have some larger rubber ducks that came from the SHCC wellness cart.

The library also has a hefty amount of ducks of all different kinds. Lorelei Sterling, the head of access services, loves the ducks and their cheerful themes.

Many of the ducks in the library are found on desks and among the stacks of books. Sterling was downcast to admit that the library is required to confiscate the ducks.

Based on the library’s standards, the ducks are considered distracting to students who go to the library expecting a clean environment where they can study. This standard also applies to flyers placed throughout the library for similar reasons.

Although the ducks have to be confiscated from the stacks and desks, Sterling explained that none of them are thrown away. Some staff take them home, some decorate their offices with them, and many ducks end up on a shelf among plants for students to see.

According to Sterling, some offices in the Learning Commons also have ducks on windowsills and within offices. One person at the Learning Commons observed that no new ducks have been hidden since December.

Sterling said as long as the ducks are not hidden on the books in stacks, within materials and papers, on the desks, or near heating vents, they are generally appropriate for the library.

So next time you see the SHCC tabling, go grab a duck and find somewhere to hide it on campus!