The first time Charles W. Edmonds, Ed.D., stepped on Lycoming College’s campus, he was a student-athlete. Nearly 10 years after he graduated in ’98, he returned to Lycoming College as a staff member, because it was there that he became inspired to pursue a career in educational leadership. With over 25 years of experience that includes previous roles such as vice president for advancement and executive vice president at Lycoming, and advancement roles at Duke and Yale Universities, Edmonds now oversees the College with the philosophy that education should be grounded in community engagement, expanding the classroom, and a deep commitment to the student experience.
South Jersey Magazine spoke to Edmonds to learn more about his approach to higher education, his vision for Lycoming and more.
How does your perspective as an alumnus influence the way you interact with students and implement initiatives?
I bring a desire to engage, learn from and interact with students as much as I can: from eating with them, to showing up at their athletic events, to being a part of student leadership meetings, to going to concerts and plays. I like to see and encounter students at their best, and at the same time, it's important to be with students when they are facing some of their greatest challenges. How we support and equip them to be resilient, to be durable, to learn and grow from the challenges they face as students, is from our own experiences and leaning into a student-centered approach to leadership.
Could you describe your most memorable experience so far?
One of the most memorable experiences was in my role as executive vice president. We had been in the midst of a very extensive 10-year comprehensive campaign. I mention this because campaigns are not just about the dollars that you raise, but the level of institutional ambition you can realize. At the culmination of that campaign—when we exceeded our goal by about 20%, reached every single subgoal and realized funding for every project that we wanted to complete—we were able to share and celebrate with faculty, staff, students and alumni. … It's a pretty special moment when a place like Lycoming can marshal the whole energy and excitement of its community in that way to achieve great things.
What are your hopes for the future?
In higher education, we need to heavily lean into the idea of putting students on the career path that they know or believe they want to pursue. College also is a time where you can pivot and change, and there are helpful mentors and colleagues that make that possible in productive ways. We need to [inspire] students to pursue careers, graduate school or professional degrees and be the leaders of tomorrow. We also really need to equip students to know how to be better human beings, how to build community, and how to develop relationships that last a lifetime. These are things that we know translate to happiness, more success professionally, and essentially greater joy and meaning over the course of a lifetime. That's what's most rewarding about being at a place like Lycoming College; we take very seriously the careers and lives of our students.
It sounds like a very tight-knit community.
We very purposefully take interest in students as whole human beings. As we like to say: we educate students’ ‘body, mind and spirit.’ Forty percent of our students are student-athletes; large numbers of students are performing on stage, in choir or in band; students are traveling the world and exploring new cultures and having that inform their academic experiences … these are all pieces to what is special about being at Lycoming College.
What are the guiding principles you hold about higher education?
Higher education is not simply about the transmission of information, it is about learning how to be more wise, helping to drive new ideas and innovation, and creating lasting organizations and businesses that contribute constructively to society and humanity.Lycoming College—and higher education in general—is about equipping people to be better at acquiring the knowledge that they need, and doing that in a way that helps them build community, contribute to the knowledge economy, and shape the world in positive ways.
What will students experience at Lycoming College?
Our mantra is—Think Deeply. Act Boldly. —we think deeply in and beyond the classroom. When we say, ‘think deeply,’ that means you engage with others … and think about the disciplines that you're studying, the questions that need to be asked, or the challenges that we face across a range of fields. You think deeply about something in order to then act boldly.The idea at Lycoming College is that neither of these should happen in a vacuum; it's when you bring the two together that you have the potential to make the greatest impact in your own life, the communities where you live and the world at large.
Lycoming College
Williamsport, Pa.
(570) 321-4026
Lycoming.edu
