Honorary Alumna
“The year of study I did with Central mesmerized me, transformed my life, cemented my skills and inspired me to launch my career.”
– Catherine Elwell
Hometown: Quincy, Illinois
Education: B.A. in French, Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, Virginia
Title: Retired senior administrative assistant, International Monetary Fund
Location: Washington, D.C.
Connection to Central: Central College Paris Program June 1971- June 1972
Catherine B. Elwell is a three-semester participant in Central College’s Paris program from June 1971 through June 1972. In Paris, she completed intensive studies in French language, literature, and culture at the University of Paris at the Sorbonne and received a certificate and a diploma from the Faculté du Cours de Civilisation and Langue Française (for foreign students), where she honed her French speaking, writing, and aural skills begun in high school and continued at Mary Washington College.
“The French teach you to worship the language,” she says. “I came back to the U.S. my senior year, wrote two theses in French and graduated with honors from Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia.” Since then she’s felt a special loyalty to Central for the unparalleled 12-month intensive study. “Through Central’s program, I received a thoroughly French classical training, which began at Mary Washington College, including the analytical exercise of the explication de texte: evaluating a piece of literature from every perspective: grammar, metaphors, similes, historical period, literary genre.”
In addition, she says, Central’s program allowed her to see “the best France had to offer.” Central organized expeditions all over France: around Paris, to Normandy, to the great country houses, to the Loire Valley—I saw so much.”
It also gave her a love of travel and of foreign places and cultures and a determination to have an international career, and of course to get back to her beloved Paris. Following graduation from Mary Washington in 1973, she began work at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. She served the IMF and its 188 member countries until her retirement in late 2008.
During much of that time, she served administrative roles in the IMF’s African Department. She participated in 30-plus mission trips to most French-speaking African nations, working with teams of IMF economists representing more than 100 different nationalities. These teams collected macroeconomic data, helped draft fiscal and monetary policy, developed structural adjustment policies to bring a country’s balance of payments into alignment, and set benchmarks for economic performance and disbursements of IMF loans.
While on mission, Elwell interacted with local authorities and the local diplomatic community; she compiled minutes of all meetings and drafted, revised, edited and proofed confidential reports in both French and English for submission to finance ministers, prime ministers and heads of state. She and the economist teams often worked into the early hours of the morning to ensure the accuracy of the negotiating documents, compiled by a variety of native and nonnative French speakers, knowing they would become the foundation for strengthening and rebuilding a country’s economy.
During her career, Elwell helped some of the world’s most vulnerable nations deal with such seismic global events as the mid-1970 oil crisis, the debt crisis of the 1980s, the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the former Soviet Union and the rise of newly industrialized countries.
She credits her study abroad experience with Central as a keen motivator for her IMF career and has been a loyal supporter of Central’s programs for more than 40 years and a regular contributor of testimonials to Central’s study abroad newsletters and brochures.
“For me, Central College was a magical place, a Shangri-La, the school that pulled this great study abroad experience together for me,” she says. “After Dorothy gets back from Oz, she must want to go to Pella!” So, after her retirement, she attended her first Central alumni gathering in Washington, D.C., in December 2009.
In the decade since, she has become an increasingly influential presence at the college. She has presented lectures on the IMF to classes, participated in panel discussions, mentored students and served as the college’s featured speaker at the NAFSA: Association of International Educators conference in Vancouver, B.C. in June 2011 — “a fairytale experience for me,” she says. In 2014 she became a member of the college’s National Advisory Council. In May 2019 she received an Honorary Alumna Award from the college.
“I am astonished, deeply touched and blown away by how I’ve been welcomed into this family. I consider it a tremendous honor” to support and to be recognized by the college, she says. In her giving and her mentorship to the college, “I focus on global learning. Today, the study abroad platform has radically changed. I’m fascinated with how today’s Central students combine a study abroad program with internships, with sustainability, with musical talent. I say to students who are wavering about whether or not to study abroad, ‘You must do this now! Do you hear me? You must! Even if you think you will never use your experience, you have no idea how wonderfully it will impact your life.’”
“Central is a jewel in America’s heartland,” she continues. “The story I take away from Central is that generations of graduates have vastly improved and enriched their lives because of this institution, and that’s how we change the world: one student at a time. That student will go back into their community and change that community. All they need is the opportunity, and they find that here. Central students tell me, ‘Central grounded me; they gave me the tools I need. I can be confident, I can speak up, I’ve studied abroad, I can do it.’ They can, and they do.”