By Garret Owens / Full360 Reporter

The Delaware Valley University campus is home to two separate Small Animal facilities, holding numerous species, including rabbits, reptiles, fish, rodents, chickens, cats, and more. The students of DelVal (Delaware Valley University) mostly care for the animals, giving them experience in a lab environment with the rules and standards in place in labs across the country.

At the head of the operation is Rebecca Hughes, a teacher and Manager of the Small Animal Facilities. While a lot of the care for the individual animals is handled by the students, Hughes makes sure that the facilities are kept up to date and safe for the people that work there but also makes sure the animals get what they need as well.

Hughes starts her day at the facilities at eight in the morning every day, and after settling in she begins by checking the morning report which has to be done by the student before the time she gets there. If there is something majorly wrong with an animal/the facility she contacts the correct person to fix the problem if she cannot handle it herself. She also checks the rooms herself every morning to make sure that everything is working properly in both facilities. Throughout the day she also teaches classes and has meetings with the workers and other staff members weekly to ensure everyone is up to date on the most recent news and ideas for the labs.

“She (Hughes) has such a big impact on the lab, she is always making sure everything is taken care of the proper way, whether that’s helping people with their nightly shifts or ordering the proper materials to care for the animals. She is such a large part of these facilities,” says Jessenia Moreno, a lab tech who has worked at the Mandell lab for 3 years.

Hughes is looking to retire in the next few years and while no date is set. She has been a huge part of many student research projects, and an inspiration to the students she works with daily.

“It’ll be bittersweet the day that I retire. I’m going to miss the students that I work with whether it be in the lab, for projects, or in the classroom. It’s going to be nice to slow down a little bit and not worry about everything that is happening inside the facilities,” Hughes says.

Moreno was also asked about the impact that Hughes will have when she leaves the labs at DelVal.

“She’s never going to leave the lab, the energy and intellect that she brings to both of the labs is always going to stay. But, it will hurt, while I may not be here when she does retire, the lab and the students she has been a part of for so long, will definitely be affected.”

There is no doubt that the impact of Rebecca Hughes in the department of the Small Animal Lab is a huge one. She is such a big part of the environment and while it probably isn’t seen very often by the everyday students of Delaware Valley University, Hughes plays a major role, just like a number of other faculty members, in the campus that makes up this University and the people that have been a part of it.