Support Graduate Students on Give Day

Graduate students teach undergraduates, advance critical research and shape the future across disciplines. That’s why the Dean Ross Grad Student Travel Endowment and Kitto Grad Hub are so important. The travel grant gives grad students the opportunity to attend conferences and arts exhibitions, present research and creative work, and network with mentors and other professionals in their field. The Kitto Grad Hub is a vibrant, inclusive space on campus dedicated to grad students — a home for collaboration, community and professional development. Even modest gifts to these funds can have an outsized impact.

The first $1,000 in donations to the Kitto Grad Hub for Give Day will be generously matched by Dean of the Graduate School David Patrick and his wife Bahareh.  

Will you give today to support Western graduate students?

Meet the graduate students and alumni who benefit from your generosity on Give Day 

WWU environmental studies graduate student Tilali Scanlan, of American Samoa is an Olympic swimmer (Tokyo ’20) who trained in the ocean for most of her 10+ year career. And now she studies sea-level rise and worsening coastal hazard impacts on threatened port systems in American Samoa.

 

Dawson Little is a graduate student of Environmental Sciences who studies the European green crab and the apex predator of the estuarine ecosystem: the river otter. European green crab is an invasive species and tenacious omnivores that will eat anything they can get their claws on, from native fauna like Dungeness crab to vital estuary flora like eelgrass. This, paired with their ability to survive in a wide range of temperatures, can displace and outcompete local species and destroy local habitats.

 

 

Beau Jay is a graduate student of environmental studies at Western who studies how ecological emotions emerge during natural disasters. For their master’s thesis, they are focusing on the emotional impact of the Eaton and Palisades fire. Through victims' connections to animals, Jay is finding that climate anxiety turned to eco rage in the aftermath of the 2025 LA County urban wildfires.