Tarleton wins 2025 Student Chapter of Year Award

Tarleton State University has won The Wildlife Society’s 2025 Student Chapter of the Year Award.

The Student Chapter of the Year Award pays tribute to and recognizes exceptional achievements.

This is the first time the Tarleton Student Chapter of The Wildlife Society has won this award, but it’s well-deserved, said Heather Mathewson, an associate professor at the university and the chapter advisor.

“We structure our activities and our events around The Wildlife Society’s mission and goals because we represent The Wildlife Society,” Mathewson said, adding that the chapter partners with entities like the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the East Foundation and the Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation to get students doing fieldwork, like habitat restoration, bird-banding, deer capture and reptile surveys. The student chapter also provides plenty of hunting and fishing opportunities, including mentored hunts for first-timers. They also offer opportunities for first-time hikers.

“They provide a lot of opportunities for students who are often first-timers on something,” Mathewson said. “They just really create opportunities with the diversity of their membership in mind.”

Chloe Delahoussaye, chapter president of the 2024-2025 school year, said that a major focus for the chapter is to give members skills that put them ahead when they graduate. Finding out what their members want, whether that means mentorship, fieldwork or other perks, is a very important part of their work.

“It gears people up to want to do more and keep going,” Delahoussaye said.