Walking Eden Hall’s Trails With Forester Molly Draper, MAFS+MBA ’25
When Molly Draper, MAFS+MBA ’25, spotted a small, dark green weed growing in the underbrush of the woods of Eden Hall Campus, she had to stop to look at it.
“My undergrads have been challenging me, and they don’t know it,” she said. “I’ve done some western PA ecological research, so I’m trying to keep my eye out for any species I don’t know. That’s a new one.”
Draper, who’s in her second semester of the Master of Arts in Food Studies and MBA program, is the forester at Chatham University. A professional graduate assistantship available in the Falk School of Sustainability, the forester helps the University sustainably manage the woods at Eden Hall.
For Draper, that involves mapping out plant species, collecting and organizing data, as well as engaging the communities that use the trails at Eden Hall, whether that’s Chatham students living on campus or their neighbors in Richland Township.
Draper explained this during a walk on the trail that starts from Eden Hall’s north parking lot. It goes through the woods and peeks out near Elsalma terrace before diving back into the trees again. Going back down into the woods, Draper pointed to the evergreen trees that seemed almost packed into the heart of the trail.
This was what remained of a Norway spruce plantation, she explained.
“It’s basically a monoculture,” she said. “They’re the same tree species, they were planted at the same time, and they weren’t spaced out in a way that would allow for growth.” Hence the uncanny uniformity of these tall, thin trunks.
Remnants of a Norway spruce plantation are tucked away in the woods of Eden Hall. (Mick Stinelli)
Since Chatham University acquired the property (which was once a workers’ retreat for women employed by the H.J. Heinz Company) over 15 years ago, the focus has been on using the land as a living laboratory.
“When we are teaching botany classes, when we are teaching tree care classes, it is being used as a classroom,” Professor Linda MK Johnson said of the woods at Eden Hall.
That can include teaching students to properly cut down trees or identifying plants and mushrooms growing in the woods, Johnson said.
As a professional forester, Draper does a lot of work identifying species at Eden Hall Campus. That’s why she stopped and doubled back to look at that tiny, green weed, almost imperceptible under a pile of dead leaves. She keeps her eyes open.
“As someone who is really inspired by my curiosity, I love working in positions like this, where learning is a part of my job,” Draper said. “And there’s an endless amount of information there.”
Draper also noted that the woods at Eden Hall are a good resource for people who are just looking to unwind, to stop thinking, and to enjoy nature.
Speaking to Pulse, Johnson said something similar: “I look at it as this resource for wellbeing. For me, there is nothing I like better than topography and woods. If students want to do trail walking or trail running, there’s a resource there to do it.”
Draper said she’s also a hands-in-the-dirt type of person, a longtime gardener who’d grow tomatoes in a five-gallon bucket as a teen, when the townhome she lived in didn’t have space for a garden.
That love of growing vegetables is part of what drew her to Chatham’s food studies program. “Harvesting the first tomato or squash… it’s just so rewarding,” she said.
While at Chatham, she also founded the Tiny Forest Coalition, a student group aimed at inspiring in students a sense of stewardship towards the woods—whether that’s at Eden Hall or wherever life takes them after graduation.
“We’re kind of like seeds right now, but blown in the wind, we’ll land somewhere else and create community wherever we land,” Draper said.
Learn more about Eden Hall Campus and Chatham University’s commitment to sustainability at chatham.edu.