Ridgway Scholar

1st Ridgway Scholar: Sarah J. Wilson

Instead of coming to the Manor for study abroad, Sarah J. Wilson from Lincolnshire travelled the other way across the Atlantic to the University of Evansville campus for her study abroad experience, with the help of the Ridgway Scholarship through the University of Evansville. The Ridgway Scholarship was set up by Dr. William Ridgway for one graduate from Lincolnshire or Huntingdonshire to attend a year at the University of Evansville. Ms. Wilson was the first winner of this now yearly award and spent the 1982/1983 academic year in the United States.

The Scholarship is still actively funding students today (further details).

“If the immediate benefits were obvious, then assorted longer-term impacts of that first Ridgway Scholarship year have been part of a much longer ‘reveal’. Over more than 33 years, I can honestly say that this really did change my life … my time at UE and Harlaxton opened doors for me, preparing me to work with international students and with university teachers (which has been my career for almost all of those 33 years since), and, for some 15 years, giving  part-time adult education teaching opportunities  in Belfast and at Cambridge … If the Scholarship made a difference professionally, it is the friendships that have had the greatest personal impact.   I was ‘adopted’, initially for just one week, as I arrived in Evansville in September 1982.  That ‘adoption’ continues, 33 years later, and Suzy Lantz (then Admissions Director at UE for Harlaxton) has been a ‘surrogate mother’ ever since … the unselfish act of Dr William Ridgway has made ‘a magnificent difference’ to UE.  His gift of the Manor has enabled generations of hundreds of American students to have their own unforgettable semester or year-long experiences.”  Sarah Ormrod (née Wilson), 2016

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