WCU Magazine Fall/Winter 2025

Wednesday afternoons at West Chester’s Charles A. Melton Center for Arts and Education are bustling with activity in the free community wellness center staffed by students from WCU’s College of Health Sciences.

Nursing students in the College are taking health histories, checking vital signs, and offering guidance about health-care resources. Additionally, students in the Interprofessional Practice (IPP) Club for all majors and supervised by advisor Dr. Megan Mraz, nursing professor, are offering wellness education.

The IPP Club launched this fall as a community resource as providing pro bono health services was the goal of Dr. Scott Heinerichs, health sciences dean. He approached the college’s student government representative Julia Dachille, a senior nutrition major, about starting a club to operate a site at Melton focusing on health promotion for the community.

“I've always been interested in helping people,” says Dachille. “This is so unique to West Chester and I feel like it fits with our community.”

Dr. Heinerichs says the center provides valuable experience that students don’t always receive in clinical training. “It’s giving back service to the underserved,” he says.

The center reflects WCU’s commitment stated in its mission statement specifying community engagement as an institutional goal. It’s also one of three institutional priorities in its strategic plan.

“I don’t know how many institutions have that in their mission statement. As a public university and anchor institution in the community, we have a moral obligation to contribute to the common good,” says Helen Hammerschmidt, associate vice president for communication, operations, and strategy, WCU Provost’s Office.

It’s a commitment that manifests in faculty research that benefits organizations; in faculty, staff, and students volunteering at sites like food pantries and tutoring programs; and in class assignments that provide needed assistance while enhancing students’ education.

WCU’s commitment to the community has earned regional and national recognition. For the fourth consecutive year, it received the Civic 50 Greater Philadelphia recognition from the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, Points of Light Foundation, and the Philadelphia Foundation — one of only two universities to receive the honor.

WCU received the Carnegie Foundation Classification for Community Engagement in 2020, awarded for the institution’s commitment to mutually beneficial partnerships with the community. WCU is seeking the voluntary re-classification again in 2026.

West Chester University is an invaluable partner to Safe Harbor and the greater Chester County community. Through innovative collaborations with faculty and students — ranging from grant-writing projects with the Honors program to impactful nutrition initiatives to direct volunteer service and RamCorps students — WCU strengthens our programs and enriches the lives of our residents. Their ongoing commitment reflects a true investment in creating a stronger, more compassionate community.

Jessica Chappell
Executive Director
Safe Harbor of West Chester County

The University established the Community Impact Alliance (CIA) as recommended by the last Carnegie classification. The group’s representatives from across campus work to improve how WCU meets community needs working collaboratively, better connect resources to community requests, and improve tracking the University’s many community initiatives. Its three co-chairs — Hammerschmidt, Dr. Julie Dietrich, executive director for External Relations, and Dr. Rita Patel Eng, senior director of the Center for Community Engagement & Social Impact (CCESI) — play significant roles in WCU’s community outreach.

Mutually Beneficial Partnerships

A key goal for the alliance is helping partners navigate the University and get what they need.

One place that happens is through the Center for Community Solutions (CCS). “The center’s purpose is to match students and community partners to work together on a project that meets community needs; it is the public mission activated. It’s a mutually beneficial partnership,” says Dr. Dietrich, CCS director.

Organizations apply, specifying a project that meets community needs, and are matched with students who apply via Handshake or are identified through targeted recruitment based upon the project’s needs. Students matched with a project are paid for their work with institutional funding.

Dr. Dietrich cites examples of successes benefiting both students and partners. “We had a student who worked on a project with the West Chester Green Team,” she says, noting their work helped inform the revision of the Borough of West Chester’s sustainability ordinance. Another student working with the Transportation Management Association of Chester County on a summer CCS project was hired to fill a part-time position with the organization this fall.

Forging Relationships, Building Resources

Hammerschmidt manages relationships with five regional chambers of commerce: West Chester, Chester County, Main Line, Greater Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Chamber. Chamber involvement provides opportunities for cultivating relationships with members of the business community.

Dr. Evan Leach, dean of the College of Business and Public Management, is a member of the West Chester Chamber’s board and a member of its professional development committee. “It builds a bridge from the expertise we have at the University to the business community,” Dr. Leach explains. “For example, if they have events and they want the events staffed with speakers, I'll look for faculty who might be qualified to participate.”

The business community connects with WCU in many ways, Dr. Leach notes. Some tap the services of the Cottrell Entrepreneurship Center or commission research via the Center for GIS and Spatial Analysis. Students in applied projects courses complete marketing strategy plans for local businesses. “At this point, we’ve done more than 100 of those projects,” Dr. Leach says.

Fostering business relationships helps grow corporate financial support, whether through sponsorships or participation in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program, which allows companies to earmark dollars for community projects. Not all support is financial. The business community participates in academic advisory boards and provides high-impact learning opportunities for WCU students through internships and other real-world experiences.

Corporate funding supports things like iCamp, which brings high school students from Philadelphia to campus to explore digital media, self-expression, and social justice. Students attend for free.

Dr. Jeremy McCool, associate professor of digital/social media, says iCamp provides an experience the students might otherwise not be able to access. He works with the teens to create podcasts spotlighting social issues — work that matches his own commitment to social justice. “A camp that brings young high schoolers to spend time on a college campus and create media that has a social message was a perfect fit for me,” he says.

Impacting the Student Experience

The Center for Community Engagement & Social Impact (CCESI) promotes community-based learning experiences for students. The center matches students with opportunities to volunteer time and promotes community-engaged learning in classes. CCESI also operates the University’s Resource Pantry, which provides non-perishable food, fresh produce and dairy products, and personal care items to undergraduate and graduate students regardless of need.

“West Chester is a public university, and as such, it has an obligation to the community and its members,” says Dr. Patel Eng. “When we engage students with the community, it makes for a richer experience for students.”

Individuals, student clubs, and athletic teams seeking service opportunities can find them through CCESI’s listings. Students also can gain leadership experience as a member of RamCorps. Members are work-study students who receive leadership training and assume ongoing roles supporting community organizations.

Community involvement is far more than an extracurricular activity.

Community-Engaged Learning integrates meaningful community partnerships with classroom instruction, offering students opportunities to apply concepts learned in class. The most committed students can earn a 12-credit Community Engagement Pathway Certificate by taking designated courses.

A 17-member CCESI Faculty Work Group acts as an advisory board identifying and prioritizing needs and projects to improve and grow community-engaged learning opportunities at the University. A Community-Engaged Learning Faculty Associate, appointed annually to work in the CCESI office, supports both faculty and students.

Current faculty associate Dr. Tina Chiarelli-Helminiak, graduate social work professor, says, “We will work with faculty from an idea to conceptualizing what that would look like in the classroom to actually implementing it in the community.” She notes that community engagement looks different in every academic discipline. In a business class, it might mean developing a marketing plan for a non-profit. In the sciences, it might be testing water in a creek in a park.

Faculty also are supported by Community Engagement Scholars trained by CCESI to assist them with growing community partnerships, community-based research projects, or other community-engagement efforts. In return, the scholars gain valuable experience.

Sakinah Bibi, a first-year master of social work student at WCU’s Philadelphia location, is Community Engagement Scholar for Dr. Hadih Deedat, assistant professor of social work. Bibi supports Dr. Deedat’s annual trip to study child welfare practices in Ghana. As a graduate assistant, she also coordinates the Philadelphia location’s Resource Pantry. Both support her career goals. “Without these experiences, I wouldn't have this amazing outlook and perspective as a social worker. … It allows me to improve my social work skills,” she says.

The Community Warehouse Project [CWP] values our partnership with WCU to get gently used furniture from the students into the CWP warehouse. We are in our eighth year of operations and really appreciate the University’s support of our mission to provide a stable and dignified home for our community members while keeping furniture out of the landfills. Furniture items and housewares are collected at the end of each school year from students thanks to the Off-Campus Housing office, which coordinates this endeavor, including hiring a truck to bring the items to us. CWP then gives these items to families and veterans in need throughout Chester County.

Glenda Brion
CEO/Founder
Community Warehouse Project of Chester County

CCESI annually recognizes faculty with its Excellence in Community-Engaged Learning Teaching Award. Dr. Stevie Grassetti, associate professor and director of the doctoral program in clinical psychology, received the 2025 award. She incorporates community work in most classes. In Psychotherapy I: Cognitive and Behavioral Therapy, students co-facilitate six sessions of anti-anxiety therapy groups at West Chester Area middle schools. She says, “Service learning provides opportunities for students to get into the ‘messy,’ complicated, and nuanced work of real-world practice by understanding barriers to those evidence-based practices that they learn about in classes.”

Dr. Sarah Lightner, associate professor of literacy, also was recognized in 2025 for her course Foundations in Reading PreK-4. Students provide literacy tutoring to preschoolers at the St. Agnes Outreach or the Chester County Intermediate Unit HeadStart. About 120 WCU students participate each semester.

Such work, Dr. Lightner notes, is a win-win for community partners and students. “It's very synergistic in that it meets our needs because our candidates get a chance to practice the skills we’ve been talking about in class … and these community partners get extra hands in the classroom working with children.”

All of CCESI’s initiatives share a common goal, Dr. Patel Eng says: “To inspire and equip students and partners to create lasting, positive change.”

 

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Honors College Focuses on Lasting Change in the Community

Gabrielle Mahoney ’22 made a lasting impact at West Chester’s West Side Community Center, where she finished her Honors College capstone project.

Mahoney helped to create the Reimagining Academic Dreams (R.A.D.) program, which helps high school juniors and seniors prepare for college, apprenticeship, or enter the workforce. Students learn about budgeting, financial aid, dressing for interviews, and more. Mahoney is now a critical care nurse at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia, and the program she helped to create continues.

“Looking back on completing a community project for my capstone, I feel grateful for the opportunity to come full circle. It was a meaningful reminder of the importance of giving back and staying engaged in the community, especially at a time when I was preparing to leave my college environment,” Mahoney says. “The project highlighted the value of community engagement, not only for the people you serve, but also for your own personal growth.”

Becoming a catalyst for lasting positive social change is a focus for students in WCU’s Honors College, reflected in its mission statement “to prepare students for lives of purpose, engaged in local and global communities.”

“Our capstone projects aren’t meant to fix something small: They’re meant to set up something sustainable into the future,” says Dr. Gerardina Martin, chair and assistant director of the Honors College. Capstones require a minimum of 150 hours to solve a problem in the community.

Kailee Rivello, an early grades preparation PreK-4 and special education dual major, was challenged to meet the sustainability requirement. Rivello worked with the after-school program coordinator at the 21st Century Community Learning Center in West Chester to create activity packets covering math, science, and language arts.

“It’s a little difficult to think about how you’re going to make a project sustainable,” Rivello says. “So it was a very rewarding aspect of my project to figure out making my project digital so that it can be carried on for years.”

Hands-on community engagement begins during the Summer Symposium, an orientation for incoming Honors students held in August before classes begin. The group has created caps for babies in a hospital neonatal intensive care unit and made dog toys for the SPCA.

Honors 311: Stewardship and Civic Engagement is among 10 required core courses for Honors students. The class explores issues related to social action and philanthropy in America. Martin teaches the class, which includes partnerships with 12 nonprofit agencies to familiarize students with their needs. “When you … actually talk with people and find out what their needs truly are, then you have a different perspective,” Martin says. During the semester, students volunteer for one of the organizations. Another class project involves writing a grant proposal for the organization, which is submitted to the Chester County Community Foundation for possible funding.

Between the capstone and required service in her class, students complete 170 hours of service. Those who complete 250 hours or more are recognized with the Donna Carney Award. Honorees’ names are listed on a plaque on the Honors floor in Allegheny Hall.

(L-R) Kailee Rivello and Dr. Gerardina Martin