WCU Magazine Summer 2025

Mark Barnes ’93

Born and raised in socially, economically, and environmentally stressed neighborhoods in Philadelphia, PA, Dr. Mark Barnes ’93 proudly holds a baccalaureate degree in geography and planning from West Chester University and advanced degrees in urban studies and geography from Temple and Rutgers universities, respectively.

He has a love of learning about the world and its peoples. Exposures to conscientious geographers laid the groundwork for his leadership; his presidential roles in the Zeta Psi Chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity as a collegian and WCU’s Black Alumni Chapter while an alumnus further built his leadership competencies.

His hometown provided fertile ground upon which Dr. Barnes grew further in leadership stature and influence. The Urban League of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, and city of Philadelphia are but a few of the many institutions that benefited from the geographic thought and geospatial tools he applied to corporate workforce and education discrimination, community-university partnership, and neighborhood economic development initiatives. As former president and director of the Pennsylvania Association of Alpha Chapters, his expertise extended to other large and small municipalities of the Commonwealth in service to the mission of his fraternity.

Today, Dr. Barnes works at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD, as a geographer, instructing and researching the crippling causes and consequences of environmental decision-making of a built, natural, and social nature. This work emphasizes water hazards and climate change, natural resource equity, geospatial technology growth and asset management, geography pedagogy, and college enrollment trends among Black males. He also serves as a national councilor of the American Association of Geographers and on the board of directors of American Rivers, a national conservation organization.

Dr. Barnes cherishes his children, Ryan, Madison, and Jordyn.

Debra D. Castaldo ’78

Dr. Deb Castaldo has traveled a diverse career path during her 47-year career in social work. Since graduating from West Chester State College with a BSW, she has worked with preschool children with special needs, as a child protective services caseworker, and in foster care and adoption. Later, she became a child, couples, and family therapist; clinical director; director of pediatric medical social work; professor; author; organizational development trainer and consultant; TV expert guest; and radio host.

After completing an MSSW degree at Columbia University, she entered clinical social work and family and couples therapy, studying with the Brief Family Therapy Center, Ackerman Institute for the Family, Relational Life Institute, and the Milton H. Erickson Foundation. She has been sharing her knowledge for more than 25 years at Rutgers University, Barry University, and other institutions.

During her doctoral studies in clinical social work at NYU — and due to her own experience with early marriage, infertility, childlessness, and midlife divorce — she completed the seminal study on women divorced at midlife without children, which became her first book, Divorced, without Children. She also authored Gifts of Love, Relationship Reboot, and The Return to Love Playbook.

The media continues to call upon Dr. Castaldo as a guest expert. She has appeared on ABC News, NBC, FOX, and CNN, and is a regular contributor on the Living Abundantly Show with Sarah Vie on WLNY55/ CBS New York. She has been featured in Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, Woman’s Day, Reader’s Digest, and The New York Post; online on Newsweek, HuffPost, Epoch Times, Women’s Health, and Hims; and as a celebrity couples expert on Popsugar and Theygossip.

Currently, Dr. Castaldo hosts Love Notes with Dr. Deb on 95.3 FM WCHE radio in West Chester. She continues regular appearances on various TV programs, writing for publications, and maintains a private practice in couples and family therapy in the NYC and West Chester areas.

Danny E. Hale ’68, M’74

One of winningest football coaches in Division II history, Danny Hale is the first person from West Chester University and the second person from Bloomsburg University to enter the College Football Hall of Fame. He won an astounding 75.4% of his games during a 25-year head coaching career that began at West Chester University in 1984 and included a 20-year stint at Bloomsburg. As coach at West Chester, he won three PSAC East titles and advanced to the NCAA playoffs in 1988.

Hale earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in health and physical education at West Chester in 1968 and 1974. He was an All-Conference pick and earned the team’s most valuable player in the 1967 state championship game. In 1968, Hale signed with the Pottstown Firebirds, the professional farm club of the Philadelphia Eagles, before entering the Marine Corps, where he played middle linebacker for the Quantico Marines.

Overall, he was named the American Football Coaches Association District I Coach of the Year nine times. He was named the PSAC Eastern Division Coach of the Year ten times; a finalist for the Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year Award in 2006; and was featured on ABC in a special hosted by Keith Jackson. Hale coached six First Team All-Americans, 96 First Team All-Conference players, and coached Jahri Evans and Matt Feiler, who each played in the NFL for more than a decade.

He is a member of three Halls of Fame: the West Chester Football, Delaware County Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports, and Bloomsburg University Athletics.

Hale, who earned an honorary degree from Bloomsburg in 2001, went into the motel business after retiring from coaching. He and his wife Diane are the parents of four children: Roman, Brandie, Tyson, and Christina. The couple has 19 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.