Assistant to the Director/Paleontologist Dr. Kenneth Lacovara, Natalie Foxhill handles all aspects of the day-to-day operations of the Jean & Ric Edelman Fossil Park at Rowan University. The park contains thousands of fossils and provides researchers with the best window, east of the Mississippi, into the Cretaceous Period—the heyday of the dinosaurs.
Natalie Foxhill discusses the impact and the opportunities offered by the Jean & Ric Edelman Fossil Park. Located in Mantua, NJ, a short 10-minute drive from the campus of Rowan University, located in Glassboro, NJ, scientists, students and community members dig for, and study, fossils found at the site - which include, among others, marine snails, brachiopods, bryozoan colonies, shark teeth, boney fish, sea turtles, marine crocodiles and mosasaurs.
Beth Dombkowski:
Hello. My name is Beth Dombkowski, and I'm coming to you from the Office of Admissions at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. Welcome to another episode of Rowan Confidential, I am joined today by Natalie Foxhill. Welcome. Thank you.
Natalie Foxhill:
Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
Beth Dombkowski:
We're very excited to have you. Natalie oversees daily operations and coordinates all events at the Jean and Ric Edelman Fossil Park of Rowan University. Along with her team, Natalie is also designing a state-of-the-art museum to be built onsite. The museum groundbreaking will take place this time next year. So Natalie, how did you get here? How did you get into this?
Natalie Foxhill:
It's pretty fascinating how it all transpired. My father, who's from the Midwest, has always been passionate about geology and paleontology, so I spent my whole childhood with my hands in the dirt, digging up fossils and studying minerals, and collecting rocks, and all of that fun stuff. When my son was homeschooled for one year as we were transitioning schools to find one that was suitable for him being on the autistic spectrum, I made him volunteer at several places, including the fossil park. And this is before Rowan University bought the property.
Beth Dombkowski:
Oh really? Okay.
Natalie Foxhill:
I used to go with him as an aid while he explored his passion for paleontology, and then I ended up falling in love with the place, and I was already familiar about the flora and fauna of the fossil park because it's the same stratigraphy in North Dakota where my family's from as it is in southern New Jersey.
Beth Dombkowski:
Really?
Natalie Foxhill:
Yeah.
Beth Dombkowski:
That's so interesting.
Natalie Foxhill:
Yeah, oddly enough. Several months into it I started teaching the kids about how a fossil forms, and fossil discovery already having this knowledge, and then I was offered a part-time position, and then that eventually developed into a full-time position as Events Coordinator for Edelman Fossil Park.
Beth Dombkowski:
That's great.
Natalie Foxhill:
Yeah, so that's how it all started.
Beth Dombkowski:
How long have you been there?
Natalie Foxhill:
I've been there since 2015. I started as a part-time employee in 2016.
Beth Dombkowski:
Wonderful. What's your backgrounds?
Natalie Foxhill:
My background is... Unfortunately I didn't go to Rowan.
Beth Dombkowski:
Okay. We'll forgive that.
Natalie Foxhill:
I went to the Art Institute of Philadelphia. My degree is actually in computer science.
Beth Dombkowski:
Oh, interesting.
Natalie Foxhill:
It's great because having that background I'm able to really focus on the promotional marketing of the park, to partake in organic marketing, and really get our name out there, and tell the world about what we're doing, and what we're creating. Even though my degree, my scientific background, is computers and not paleontology, it all ties in together.
Beth Dombkowski:
Now, do you do work with current Rowan students at the park?
Natalie Foxhill:
We do. We're very involved in Rowan students from not just the School of Environment students, but students from all over. Even though we're not open to the public, we only open up a couple of times a year to the public, our doors are always open for professors and their students. It's really important to get them involved as much as possible in every capacity.
Beth Dombkowski:
But we are going to be open to the public soon, correct? You're building a museum?
Natalie Foxhill:
We are. We're building a state-of-the-art museum like the United States has never seen. The only place where you can really go dig for fossils is in the Midwest where my family is, and it's a three month waiting list, and it's very costly, and very hard to get into. This is the only place where you can visit a state-of-the-art museum that has this amazing narrative about not only what this world was like here in southern New Jersey 65 million years ago, but also focusing on climate change, and where we are now, and what we can do to make a difference.
Natalie Foxhill:
Right now we're looking at about 40,000 square feet, and we are so fortunate that two Rowan alumni, Jean and Ric Edelman, donated $25 million to build this visitor center. And then Rowan University matched it with another $25 million, so now we have $50 million that we are spending very carefully to create an experience like no one has ever seen. This will be one of the few places, actually the only place, where you can go dig for fossils, put your cell phone in your pocket, connect with nature, and you can keep what you find.
Beth Dombkowski:
Can you? Interesting.
Natalie Foxhill:
You can keep what you find unless it's significant. We can't send a student home with a six foot mosasaurus skull, so in situations like that, we do take them for scientific research, but we will be focusing on the citizen science of our visitors, and the students, and they will have their own display in a museum with the specimen that they found and their name will always be attached to it. They may not be able to take home the significant specimens, but it'll always be attached to them in that way. And we really look forward to promoting them as citizen scientists.
Beth Dombkowski:
That's so exciting. What is your role in the development of the museum?
Natalie Foxhill:
We are a very small staff. Not including the director we're a staff of two, and so it's the three of us along with our architect's [inaudible 00:00:05:47], and our exhibit designer's Gallagher, really creating the visitor experience. What is it that we want to focus on? We're obviously want to focus on what life was like here because it's exciting to know that we were under the water and the Marine life that lived here. That's something else to focus on, but also, we know what happened.
Natalie Foxhill:
There was a cataclysmic event 65 million years ago, an asteroid smacked off the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, created the Chicxulub crater. All that debris went up into the atmosphere, rained back down, and 76% of life as we know it was wiped out. That was the fifth extinction. We're in the middle of the sixth extinction right now as a result of our human involvement; us not taking care of our planet, our overconsumption, our lack of recycling. We want to, A, create that sense of all and small to really know our place in time, where we were, and how we're going to end up unless we can create change.
Natalie Foxhill:
We will focus on that extinction, but we want to leave with a message of hope. We will have a Hall of Hope as well that our students and our public visitors will be able to leave with that sense of hope, and wanting to create change. We're going to do it in a way that incorporates AR and VR experiences. Our exhibits will always be upgraded to keep them fresh, and a lot of young adults when they visit a museum, they're kind of over the diorama dynamic of a museum. We are incorporating technologies to keep everybody excited.
Beth Dombkowski:
And they can actually get their hands dirty, and be there in the ground.
Natalie Foxhill:
Yes. Not only can they experience the museum, but they can get their hands dirty and be there in the ground. We invite Rowan students all the time, and it's a huge part of our narrative.
Beth Dombkowski:
That's so exciting. Groundbreaking starts next year?
Natalie Foxhill:
It does. We anticipate groundbreaking this time next year. Of course, anything can throw off the trajectory of building something this significant, but we are looking forward to groundbreaking this time next year.
Beth Dombkowski:
And when do you expect to be open?
Natalie Foxhill:
We are hoping to open our doors in the Fall of 2022.
Beth Dombkowski:
Oh my goodness, really looking forward to that. So, why Rowan?
Natalie Foxhill:
Well, I have a lot of emotional attachment to Rowan even though I was not a student here unfortunately. My mother is an alumni here, I have many family and friends that have gone here. I live the next town over, and seeing what Rowan has done where these students can get a first class education right here in southern New Jersey that's cost effective, and what it's done for economic development is just phenomenal, and it just keeps growing, and growing. I'm so thrilled for these students and the experiences that they have.
Natalie Foxhill:
When I became involved when the fossil park Rowan did not own the property, so when they purchased the property I wasn't apprehensive about the transition, I just didn't know what to expect. But once I had the opportunity to meet the School of Earth and Environment faculty, and knowing how passionate they were about the success of their students and promoting that drive, it was amazing. I knew it was something that I wanted to be a part of.
Natalie Foxhill:
The Dean of the School of Earth and Environment, Dr. Kenneth Lacovara, he's also the director of Edelman Fossil Park, so it's really great that we have that liaison there to tie it all into Rowan. We work very closely with Advancement, they're huge supporters of ours, and you don't have to be a student of the School of Earth and Environment to take in what the fossil park has to offer. We have students from engineering, from business, from the School of Medicine, from all over, so it really benefits everybody.
Beth Dombkowski:
When students come to the fossil park, what is the main takeaway? What experience do you want them to take with them?
Natalie Foxhill:
I want them to really have that sense of wonder about their place in time, and what they can do to make a difference. Creating that sense of all in small is something that is really passionate to our narrative about this place, and for them to leave enlightened, and they do. It's hard to get people out of the quarry because it's a raw, authentic experience. I have guests all the time that tell me, "I'd rather go here than Disney World because it's authentic. I'm connecting with nature." You're getting out of the classroom, you're getting away from the desk, and the smart boards, and you have this hands-on experience that cannot be duplicated anywhere else except behind the Lowe's in Mantua township.
Beth Dombkowski:
I'm so excited to see this develop. Thank you so much for coming to talk to us today.
Natalie Foxhill:
Yeah, thank you for having me. We look forward to your visit too.
Beth Dombkowski:
Sounds good. This has been Rowan Confidential.