From the Office of the Dean...

June 30, 2009

Psychology alum serves as agent of change for Midlands city

With single-minded dedication to her state and community, psychology alum Elise Partin unseated her long-serving political opponent in the last general election to become the new mayor of Cayce, South Carolina. Now she energizes the state as she works for change.

As the first woman mayor of the City of Cayce, and the city’s first new mayor in 18 years, Elise Partin has created her own mini media storm. When Partin was a graduate student at Carolina, she moved to Cayce, located just across the Blossom Street Bridge from campus.

“Its proximity to downtown and the University was fabulous,” said Partin, who has finished two Carolina degrees: a BS in psychology in 1992, and a master’s degree in public health in 1995. Originally from Charleston, Partin has now lived in Cayce for more than 15 years.

“I continued to rent the house after I graduated, and then I bought it, and then my husband and I built on to it,” she said. “We love this community and love coming home from the river every night. Now our children have grown up walking the Riverwalk almost every day of their young lives.”

One of her first projects since taking office has been creating a vision for the city based on the resident and business leader input she has received.

“I was elected in November, and since Cayce hasn’t had a new mayor in some time, my first months in office have been spent getting to know various leaders in our community -- political leaders, business leaders, and neighborhood leaders,” she said. “I’ve been meeting them so they can know who I am and so I can listen to them to learn what I need to know and to confirm that we are heading in the right direction.”

A psychology major as an undergraduate at Carolina, Partin minored in public health; her master’s degree focused on nutrition and exercise. “My degrees at Carolina are a good fit for what I do now as mayor in the sense that we learned about finding who the informal community leaders were and what the issues were, so everything I learned applies,” she said. “It’s been a fabulous background for listening to people and finding what we need to be doing.”