Wendy Edgar

Erskine College Director of Development Wendy Edgar No Stranger to the Erskine Experience

Erskine’s new Director of Development, Wendy Edgar, freshly arrived from San Dimas, Calif., is new to Due West, and new to Erskine–sort of. The truth is, Edgar has already experienced Erskine, through acquaintance with Erskine College students sent to the English Language Institute for China (ELIC), where she served as director of college programs.

"I would select, train and send the college students for the summer and for the year-long programs in Asia. We had about 600 applications annually, and of those I would send and keep track of about 350," said Edgar.

Erskine students have traveled to China, Mongolia, and Vietnam under the auspices of ELIC, teaching English to Asian students. "That's really how I heard about Erskine," Edgar said. "In the first year of the program, the Erskine students drifted to the top, as the cream of the crop of the students I had sent into Asia.

"I deal with hundreds of colleges and this one, Erskine, was foremost in my mind–something special was happening here that I did not see with other colleges."

Edgar's job with ELIC has helped prepare her, she believes, for her duties as Director of Development. "We were in Asia for six years, in China–our whole family was living there. We raised support for our family to go and live in China.

"My last position with ELIC was partially funded and partially self-supported–we had to raise some of our own funds. In the course of my work, I wrote manuals for college students on how to raise funds for their trips to Asia with ELIC.

"So I have experience on a smaller scale with fundraising and also on a larger scale with organizing people and materials–this lends itself to the Development position pretty well."

While the Development Division area of Belk Hall is being remodeled, Edgar is making a temporary office home in the Alumni Office area, and is busy learning about her new job. "My first plan is to listen and absorb as much as I can," said Edgar, who has been appointed to a new position at Erskine created during the recent restructuring of the Development Division.

"My second plan is to work with the computer system and see what we can and can't get out of it. We need to increase the information we are storing so that our visits can become very personal and we can improve our record keeping.

"Then I hope to be able to keep closer track of what is going on, of the action that each staff member is taking. Eventually, I would like to go out with Lee Logan a time or two, and maybe go out on some visits on my own."

Edgar and her husband Bob have two daughters, one who is a new transfer student at Erskine this year and another who is just beginning her studies at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.

"Right now my husband is in New York getting our younger daughter settled in," Edgar said. "He is still with ELIC as director of cooperating agencies. He will have an office here on campus in the chaplain's office area of Watkins Student Center."

The Edgars are living in Due West, and though life in the South is new to them, Edgar is happy to point out they do have family in nearby Pickens.