A transformative $2.1 million gift from an anonymous donor celebrates Franklin & Marshall’s renowned Department of Earth & Environment and the impact of its esteemed faculty. The gift establishes the Distinguished Professorship of Geosciences in honor of Robert C. Walter, Ph.D. ’75, and creates the Earth & Environment Instrument Support Endowment.

The gift shines a light on the prolific career of Dr. Earl D. Stage & Mary E. Stage Professor of Geosciences Bob Walter ’75, whose expertise in geochemistry, geochronology and hydrogeology has not only advanced the field but also shaped the lives of generations of F&M students.

“Geosciences have an extraordinary history at F&M,” said President Andrew Rich. “Many generations of geology majors at F&M have gone on to careers of distinction, and today, our Department of Earth & Environment is exceptional — a program of strength unmatched at other liberal arts colleges. I am grateful for the generosity of the donor and thrilled that the gift honors Bob Walter, who is a treasure among both our alumni and our faculty. This is a fitting tribute to his contributions to F&M, to generations of students, to his field of study, and to our society.”

“Dr. Robert Walter embodies the care, dedication and academic accomplishments that merit this endowed professorship award in his name,” said the anonymous donor. “Through the years — first as a student, then followed by his groundbreaking science at the Institute for Human Origins dating famed archaeological discoveries in East Africa, then returning to F&M as a highly regarded professor and co-founder of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Initiative — Dr. Walter has taught foundational geoscience courses and led important research projects with students. His enthusiasm and dedication as Director of the Geoscience Founders Society at F&M has benefited students and alums alike, and he continues to bring international scientific and community recognition to F&M."

From Lancaster County to East Africa — and Back Again

For Walter, his path to becoming a pillar of F&M’s faculty began just a few miles from campus.

“I grew up in Lancaster County and went to a small high school in New Holland,” Walter recalls. “During my junior year I had an earth and space science class that was taught by a gentleman who got his master's degree at Franklin & Marshall. He told me what a great school it was. I was always interested in natural history, I loved rocks and minerals, I loved camping, I loved going outside. So that really struck a chord with me.”

He arrived at F&M with a clear interest but an open mind: He knew he wanted to study geology, but wasn’t sure what he wanted to focus on in the field. A connection with his advisor and mentor, Dr. Earl D. Stage & Mary E. Stage Chair Emeritus Professor of Geosciences Stanley Mertzman, helped to refine this attention on volcanology and deep earth history.

That foundation sent him to graduate school at Case Western Reserve and then to East Africa, where he spent 25 years helping to date early hominid fossils using volcanic ash. Walter’s time in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia and Eritrea would define the early part of his career — he jokes that he’s spent more birthdays in Ethiopia than anywhere else. During the 1980s, he began witnessing a period of major drought and famine that started to shift his perspective. He began to ask how he could apply his training to explore water resources for the betterment of society.

That question, and a desire to return to a liberal arts environment where he might have the same profound influence on undergraduates that helped shape his own career, eventually brought his focus back to Lancaster County. Alongside Harry W. & Mary B. Huffnagle Professor of Geosciences Dorothy Merritts, Walter began studying stream bank erosion and the impact of 19th-century mill dams on the Chesapeake watershed. Their “short-term” project that followed a tip from a student about an unusually high stream bank has now spanned 25 years.

“I told Dorothy that this [erosion research] was just a temporary thing,” Walters recalls. “I’d be going back to Africa at some point soon. Here we are 25 years later, and every few months, something new comes out that adds to the story in a substantial and really fundamental and creative way.”

Modeling Excellence at F&M

Since returning to F&M to teach, Walter and Merritts have modeled their research groups after what you would find at R1 universities, except they involve undergraduate rather than graduate students. And they tap their talents from their first year through graduation and beyond.

“We treat [our students] as high-level, high-functioning research students,” says Walter. “We tell them that we take this notion of independent research very seriously, that the motivation has to come from the fire in their belly... We give them everything that they need to succeed. But we don't do the work for them. They do the work. They learn how to do that and they love it.”

The endowed professorship and the equipment support endowment ensure that this level of research and academic excellence remains a distinguishing feature of F&M’s curriculum and career preparedness for its graduates. 

“Our faculty are F&M’s greatest resource and the reason that students from around the world choose to study and begin lives of impact here in Lancaster,” said Provost Sunita Kramer ’92. “Establishing an endowed professorship in Bob’s honor and creating an endowed fund to support the specialized equipment that sets geosciences and the Department of Earth & Environment apart from what other liberal arts schools can offer affirms that F&M is among the most compelling opportunities for the world’s most promising young scholars.”

When reflecting on his extensive contributions to the field and the College, Walter remains focused on the department's collective success and the generosity of the F&M community.

“Quite truthfully, I was stunned and incredulous,” Walter says of the endowment. “It's such an honor, and it's very humbling... to know that someone recognized the work [necessary] to maintain the high integrity of geosciences and our department as a whole... the fact that it's anonymous [makes it] even more profound.”

Geosciences at F&M

Become an expert in a vital field that consistently ranks among the best undergraduate programs in the country. “Geosciences have an extraordinary history at F&M,” said President Andrew Rich. “Many generations of geology majors at F&M have gone on to careers of distinction, and today, our Department of Earth & Environment is exceptional–a program of strength unmatched at other liberal arts colleges.” By studying geosciences at F&M, you’ll examine and understand the dynamic processes that shape our planet, the minerals and rocks that comprise it, and the features and processes of the Earth’s surfaces and interior — all while building a strong foundation for a promising career in the field.

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