Image Credits: @wcu_ess_club on Instagram
On Nov. 7, West Chester Geoscience major and 1871 award recipient Kate Frederick and Professional Studies major August Oberlin won first place at West Chester’s social innovation challenge, being awarded a total of $2,500. While some might just go home and call it a day, she and the Earth and Space Science department are aiming to shoot for the stars because Frederick and the ESS Club are currently running a fundraiser, assisted by Professor of Geology Elliott Arnold.
This year, Dr. Sandie Mather is the catalyst for a very special fundraiser for the ESS department. “She generously offered us up to $20,000 if we can match up to $10,000 of [the] money that she donates,” recalled Dr. Arnold.
The Department of Earth and Space Sciences has a long lasting collection with Dr. Sandie Mather, a West Chester University alumna and former science professor. Although retired, she is still incredibly active around the university, visiting campus relatively often. She can be seen frequently in the halls of Merion Science Center, giving input to Dr. Gagne, the director of the planetarium.
In her kindness, she has been a great help to the department over the years, providing no strings attached funds — meaning to be used as the recipient sees fit. “She’s given so much money that we’ve named the planetarium after her,” recalled Dr. Arnold.
She has also put money towards study abroad trips and scholarships — one beneficiary being Kate herself. “I got one of her astronomy scholarships, and she’s been so generous to so many of the students,” she said. “It’s really awesome that we have this opportunity.”
The West Chester University Foundation has worked with the ESS department in making the fundraising website, part of a larger website for The Day of Giving. The Day of Giving is an unofficial holiday that West Chester has celebrated for the past six years, where the community comes together to support university run programs and initiatives. “This initiative brings alumni, faculty, staff, students, families and friends together across WCU,” says last year’s website. All fundraisers on the site have until The Day of Giving to raise their goal amount of money, with hopes of being matched by businesses and individuals willing to donate. The fundraiser officially ends on March 8.
“All the money donated will be put in this… larger fund,” explains Frederick, “and something really interesting is that the West Chester University Foundation accumulates interest. So the money we raise now, it won’t just be $10,000 or $20,000. It’ll accumulate interest over time. And we want to use that to establish a new department scholarship for current and future Earth and Space Science Students to help alleviate some of the financial burdens of college.”
The students who would benefit from the scholarship would also be students doing feats of research.“There are a lot of students who, one, are paying out of pocket for their own college education… and [these] research opportunities, unfortunately, are not always paid. And so hopefully for this scholarship, for whatever the situation is for the student, if they’re doing an experimental, experimental learning opportunity, if they’re doing research, if they’re using their own money for college, that we can help alleviate that burden.”
Frederick elaborates on the diversity of students in the department, which has eight faculty and 90 students as of Nov. 2025. “A lot of the students here are really passionate about protecting the earth and learning more about the science behind our wonderful planet. And so it’s awesome to just be able to meet my peers and learn all about their different interests because Earth science is such a broad field. We have paleontologists and geochemists and physicists and all the way up to like meteorology, so it’s really cool to just see the wide range of interests that students have, and I think that’s a big part of our department culture.”
They also hope to use the fundraiser to fund student research and student learning, due to the many students active in research who have presented at regional and national conferences, including Frederick. “The research that they’re doing is very consequential,” Arnold says with a proud glint in his eye. “They’re researching the environment, they’re researching the climate and the evolution of the climate and how those two things may impact the future of humanity.”
Seeing the great impact made by undergraduate research, guiding students through their projects has become one of Professor Arnold’s most cherished activities. “It’s really important as an undergraduate student to engage in research. So, you can learn how to ask important questions about the Earth and address those questions with your research.”
The biggest challenges the students are facing regarding the fundraiser is exposure. “It’s not really well known,” Frederick explains. “A lot of our marketing is based on the Earth and Space Science Department Instagram, and also the ESS Club Instagram. And we can ask other clubs to repost, but it’s still not a widely known matching campaign.”
There is also the fact that $10,000 is a daunting amount of money to raise, and Frederick is understanding of the limitations of the easiest donors to reach. “As of now, most of our donors are undergraduate students who most likely would qualify to be recipients of scholarships or would maybe need, like, financial help themselves during college. A lot of students don’t have that much money because college is a transitional period. And so…. we’ve been incredibly grateful for the students who have currently donated, but also we have to broaden our audience to include maybe industry professionals, established people in the Earth and Space sciences, so that we can get a larger amount of funds faster.”
They have raised several thousand dollars as of this article, and you can access the fundraiser through either the Give Campus website or through the link on their Instagram.
Emily Rutz is a second-year English major and minors in French, Creative Writing, and Professional and Technical Writing.