Chilcoat ’27 | Advancement Office

My eight-week summer internship with the Advancement Office was an enlightening experience that unveiled to me a breadth of new knowledge and experience. Previously, I had little idea how dependent academic institutions are on external funding from groups and foundations (Wabash included). This experience gave me a better perspective on the inner workings of the college and a newfound appreciation for the complex planning that goes into large projects such as the construction of the new Community Center. I quickly came to understand the extent to which professors rely on external funding grants to support their research ventures and the valuable role the grant-writing office plays in making sure those opportunities are available.

I gained a variety of new skills in the office that will be useful to me in my professional development. First, my proficiency with Microsoft tools such as Word and Excel has reached a new peak. This is, in part, because I designed and constructed an Excel sheet detailing the research interests of faculty members to gauge which funding sources could adequately support their interests. The internship also gave me the opportunity to improve my professional writing, whether it was through drafting letters of inquiry to send to foundations or constructing briefs to presented to donors during grant meetings. These two examples barely scratch the surface of my day-to-day projects: I designed a survey to send out to faculty, researched AI tools, learned the basics of editing a webpage, engaged in conversations about sourcing funding at a high level, and more. There was never a dull day in the office- I was always switching gears and refining a new skill, finding new ways to assist my constituents in furthering our shared purpose of improving the college!