This Farm(ed) Animal Awareness Week, we sat down with three IHE alums—a sanctuary director, a course creator, and a nonprofit founder—to ask how their work is changing the way people think about farmed animals.
For context: Every year, more than 80 billion land animals are slaughtered for meat (FAO Data via Our World in Data), not including the animals who die before being slaughtered. This makes animal farming by far the greatest contributor to non-human animal suffering and death and environmental degradation, and thus is an issue near and dear to many humane educators’ hearts.
What inspired you to start working with/educating about farmed animals?
Kelly Nix, Executive Director of Luvin Arms Animal Sanctuary in Colorado, earned her Graduate Certificate in Humane Education in 2023. She is completing both her Doctorate of Education in Educational and Professional Practice, with a concentration in Humane Education, through IHE and Antioch University, and her MSL in Animal Law through the Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis & Clark Law School, with both degrees expected in 2026. She will also begin the University of Denver Sturm College of Law’s Executive Certificate in Animals Forward: Advancing Interspecies Justice.
In November 2020, I visited Luvin Arms with my two youngest kids. I was pescatarian at the time, thinking I was making ethical choices. Then we met Marley Rose, a freemartin calf just a couple of months old, born into the dairy industry and separated from her mother. Watching my children comfort her while I learned the realities of the dairy industry, something inside me broke open. That moment changed everything. On the drive home, I decided to eliminate all animal products from our household and use my background in education to advocate for these animals. That decision led me to join Luvin Arms in 2022, first as their Humane Educator Coordinator and now as the Executive Director. My time in IHE’s program deepened my understanding of how the systems harming animals connect to wider injustices and harms, including against marginalized human communities and the environment. Connecting with others through the IHE program gave me a community of peers who, like me, see education as a powerful tool for systemic change.
Dana McPhall, a faculty member with IHE and Antioch University’s Humane Education Graduate Programs and founder of Liberate in Mind, completed her MEd in Humane Education in 2015.
As a kid, I didn’t think about farmed animals, to be honest. I was very connected to companion animals, and that is where my love for animals started. As I became an adult, and through different lived experiences of oppression, I began to understand the ways in which not only companion animals are harmed by systems of exploitation and extraction, but farmed animals are as well.
I remember an advocacy video from years ago that shared some of the horrendous things that are done to farmed animals. I just remember their eyes and the look of fear, like the animals were questioning, “How can people do this to me?” And I connected with that. The seemingly unrelenting violence that can be inflicted upon communities and different species… It sometimes can feel like a torrent that will never stop. And I have felt what it’s like to be the target of that unrelenting suffering. And when I look in the eyes of farmed animals and others, I feel like they feel it too. And so that’s why I highlight the importance of farmed animal advocacy in my work.
As I became an adult, and through different lived experiences of oppression, I began to understand the ways in which not only companion animals are harmed by systems of exploitation and extraction, but farmed animals are as well.
When I became a humane educator, I began to dig more deeply into the connections between racism, anti-Blackness in particular, and animal exploitation. There are millions of farmed animals who are harmed in our system of food production, and, if people are willing to look, it’s readily apparent the ways in which marginalized communities are also harmed within that same system. This is not a coincidence.
Beth Carper, founder of Menus for Change, completed their MA in Humane Education in 2020.
My path toward humane education and advocacy for farmed animals began during my undergraduate studies in Animal Science. As a requirement for my degree, I took a “Meat Science” course that directly exposed me to the suffering that farmed animals endure, conditions that I had never confronted before. That experience was a turning point. I became vegan and served as president of our campus animal rights club, determined to raise awareness about the realities of animal agriculture. This journey ultimately led me to IHE. My time in IHE’s graduate program deepened my understanding by connecting issues of animal exploitation to broader systems of oppression and giving me the tools to inspire compassion through education. Courses on intersectionality, environmental ethics, and food systems helped shape the foundation for my work at Menus for Change and continue to guide me to create a kinder, more just world for farmed animals.
What does educating on behalf of farmed animals look like in your work?
Kelly
As Executive Director of Luvin Arms, I oversee sanctuary operations while ensuring our programs stay rooted in Comprehensive Humane Education, connecting the issues affecting humans, nonhuman animals, and the environment. I manage a team, build community partnerships, and drive outreach initiatives.
When visitors come to Luvin Arms, I want them to do more than meet rescued animals. I want them to understand the systems that necessitated their rescue.
My vision is for sanctuaries to reclaim their position as radical spaces of resistance, not simply rescue operations. When visitors come to Luvin Arms, I want them to do more than meet rescued animals. I want them to understand the systems that necessitated their rescue. Every resident represents both an individual saved and an opportunity to teach about the structures that endangered them. Their stories create powerful narratives that move people beyond sympathy toward systemic understanding and action. Sanctuaries should be centers of radical education where visitors learn not just to love animals, but to understand and challenge the systems that oppress them.
Dana
At IHE, I created and currently teach a graduate course called Race, Intersectionality, and Veganism, which focuses on issues related to veganism and racial justice. My prior work in both animal advocacy and civil rights brought me to IHE as a student. So during my studies, I began thinking more about how issues of animal exploitation and racism overlap and how we can more explicitly integrate racial justice into the field of humane education. This ultimately led to the creation of the course.
My faculty work has led me to start a nonprofit project called Liberate in Mind. The purpose of my project is to foster educational initiatives and thought leadership to support justice movements and individual educators and advocates in understanding the role of animal liberation in dismantling systems of racial hierarchy. As part of the initial work of the project, I plan to launch a public course on race, animals, and collective liberation next year.
In addition, Liberate In Mind recently became an active member of the Plant-Powered School Meals Coalition, which seeks to expand nutritious and delicious plant-based foods and beverages in U.S. K-12 schools. At Liberate In Mind, we see access to healthy, sustainable, plant-based foods as one area of intersectional justice where we can make an impact for both farmed animals and communities experiencing food insecurity and food apartheid.
Beth
I recently founded Menus for Change, a nonprofit that helps organizations put their values into practice by serving plant-based food at events and workplace functions. Menus for Change offers consulting, resources, and a growing range of community education and outreach programs that make it easier for institutions to serve plant-based meals. This work is driven by my passion for creating systemic change that fosters empathy and justice for farmed animals in everyday decision-making. Each policy we help implement reduces demand for animal products, sparing the lives of countless farmed animals while also encouraging people to reflect on the biases that allow compassion for some animals but not for others.
How can we help people rethink their relationship with farmed animals and/or the systems that exploit them?
Kelly
It starts with people understanding that they’re individuals. Period. Once you spend time with a cow like Tito or pigs like Gilmour and Lizzie, you can’t unsee their individual sentience. These animals have preferences, personalities, and relationships. They seek comfort, avoid pain, and form bonds with each other and with the humans who care for them. The systems that exploit them depend on our not knowing this, on our not seeing them as individuals. That invisibility is intentional. The agricultural industry spends billions ensuring we never connect the living being to the product. Sanctuaries disrupt that. When someone meets a resident and hears their story, the abstraction becomes an individual. That’s when everything shifts. I’ve watched it happen countless times, and I experienced it myself. Meeting Marley Rose in 2020 changed the trajectory of my life. I want that encounter for everyone.
Dana
People eat every day, so I think that our food system is something people can relate to in terms of their own personal experiences. So talking about the harm caused by our food system can potentially resonate with people in a way that some issues might not, because it affects them and their lives on a daily basis. And unfortunately, most people in the U.S. consume animal products at mealtime, and the breadth of the suffering that occurs as a result is so immense that it’s almost unimaginable. For these reasons, I’ve decided to focus on the interrelated injustices within our food systems, such as factory farming, as an integral part of my educational work. I think if people can be persuaded to learn and reflect, they can connect with what’s going on.
Beth
I want people to know that farmed animals are individuals with rich inner lives, each capable of experiencing joy, fear, and love, just like the animals we share our homes with. When we take the time to see them for who they are rather than what they provide, it becomes impossible to ignore their suffering.
Right now, our food system is built to hide that reality. It treats living, feeling beings as units of production. Changing our food systems is about pulling back that curtain. When we transform institutional menus and rethink our definition of food, we create structural space for compassion. My hope is that people begin to extend the same empathy they have for dogs and cats to animals of all species, recognizing that every life holds value. Through education and awareness, I believe we can build a future where compassion guides our choices, and farmed animals are no longer treated as commodities, but as beings deserving of respect and protection.
When we take the time to see them for who they are rather than what they provide, it becomes impossible to ignore their suffering.
Kelly, Dana, and Beth show that education on behalf of farmed animals can take many forms — a sanctuary tour, a graduate course, or a simple question about what’s served at the next work event. This Farm Animal Awareness Week, consider how you might help someone relate differently to farmed animals (and that someone could be yourself!)
To learn more about these educators’ work:
Kelly
Website: www.luvinarms.org | Instagram/Facebook: @luvinarms | Email: kelly@luvinarms.org
Dana
Website: www.liberateinmind.org | Instagram/Facebook: @liberateinmind | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/liberate-in-mind | Email: dana@liberateinmind.org
Beth
Website: www.MenusForChange.org | Instagram/Facebook: @menusforchange | Email: beth@menusforchange.org
To learn more about the Humane Education Graduate Programs, you can visit our graduate program page and submit an inquiry to get in touch with the team. We’d love to hear about your work on behalf of farmed animals and how our programs might support you.