The newest arrival on Hofstra's Hempstead campus has floppy ears, a red collar and a job description that will take him the better part of two years to grow into. His name is Dutch, he is a golden Labrador retriever puppy, and on September 28 he padded through the Student Center for the first time while camera crews, ROTC cadets and a crowd of students found reasons to be exactly where he was.

Dutch is a future service dog, and his arrival makes Hofstra the first college or university in the country to join Puppy With a Purpose, the program run by America's VetDogs, the Smithtown nonprofit that breeds, raises and trains assistance dogs for veterans and first responders with disabilities. Organizations that join the program take on a puppy and raise him inside their own world, giving the dog a childhood full of elevators, crowds, cafeterias and commutes. The program has embedded puppies with professional sports franchises, including the NHL's Washington Capitals. It has never embedded one at a college until now.

A year of homework, none of it graded

Dutch arrived on campus earlier this month and will stay until he is 14 to 18 months old. His curriculum is socialization: meeting a wide range of people, walking unfamiliar hallways, hearing marching bands and dining halls and everything else 10,000 students generate, so that none of it will rattle him later when someone's independence depends on his calm.

His primary raiser is Dr. Deborah Elkis-Abuhoff, an associate professor of counseling and mental health professions who also serves as a staff psychologist for America's VetDogs and advises Hofstra's Student Veterans of America chapter. She will not do it alone. Hofstra is now searching for a student to serve as Dutch's volunteer co-raiser, a role that means sharing responsibility for his care, his socialization and his early learning for the rest of his time on campus. Students can apply at VetDogs.org/Hofstra, and the university says the experience will demand the patience, dedication and teamwork of raising any puppy, multiplied by the stakes of this one.

When his campus year is done, Dutch heads back to the America's VetDogs national training center in Smithtown for formal training with certified service dog instructors. At the end of that road he will be paired with a veteran or first responder with disabilities, at no cost to that person. Breeding, raising and training a single assistance dog runs more than $50,000, and the organization has never charged a recipient.

The name is a Hofstra history lesson

Dutch is named for the Dutch roots of William Hofstra, whose estate became the university in 1935. The connection to the Smithtown organization runs deeper than geography: John Miller, the president and CEO of America's VetDogs, earned both his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Hofstra, and the partnership brings his two institutions together around a single dog.

The work waiting for Dutch covers more ground than most people picture when they hear the words service dog. The Smithtown campus trains dogs for a range of assignments, from guide work for people who are blind or have low vision to service dogs trained for PTSD support and seizure response, along with facility dogs posted to military bases and first responder houses. Which of those lives Dutch ends up living will depend on the temperament he shows as he grows, which is part of why his Hofstra year matters so much.

America's VetDogs was founded in 2003 by the Guide Dog Foundation, its sister nonprofit, which has been training guide dogs in Smithtown since 1946. Between them the two organizations have placed more than 3,300 guide, service and facility dogs across all 50 states, and this month they broke ground on a new puppy development and visitor center at the Smithtown campus, the place where Dutch's serious schooling will eventually happen.

Two dogs on campus, two different jobs

Dutch is not Hofstra's only working dog. Mack, the Department of Public Safety's community resource dog, already makes the rounds supporting wellness and community engagement. Their assignments are distinct: Mack's job is the campus itself, while Dutch's time at Hofstra is preparation for a life with one person who has not met him yet.

For everyone else, the assignment is simpler. Dutch has his own Instagram account, @HofstraVetDog, where the university will document his progress from clumsy to capable. Anyone on Long Island can watch a very good dog learn to become a life-changing one, and one Hofstra student is about to get the strangest and best line a resume can carry: helped raise Dutch.