A Focus on Future Professionals Alumni Wali and Wendy Bacdayan created scholarships to benefit students in business, nursing and allied health.

By Louise Uffelman
August 8, 2017

Wali Bacdayan and Dr. Wendy Bacdayan established two scholarships at Northwestern State University of Louisiana to benefit students pursuing careers in nursing and allied health, and in business.

Wali, who graduated from Washington and Lee University in 1992, and Wendy, who graduated in 1994, created the Bacdayan Family First-Generation Scholarship in Nursing and Allied Health and the Bacdayan Family First-Generation Scholarship in Business to honor Wali’s father, Dr. Andrew Bacdayan, who was an economics professor at NSU.

Each scholarship was created with a $60,000 contribution that will be matched by the Board of Regents, to be fulfilled at $100,000.

The NSU website noted that the couple selected the fields because of their own careers. Wali is a co-founder and partner in a private equity investment firm, Incline Equity Partners, which manages roughly $1.4 billion in assets and acquires manufacturing, distribution and outsourced services companies valued between $50 million and $200 million. Wendy is a pediatrician in private practice in Upper St. Clair, Pennsylvania, in suburban Pittsburgh.

“Both my parents and my wife’s parents always viewed education as a means to pursue greater opportunities for themselves as well as for their children,” Wali said. “For my parents, it was the avenue that brought them to the U.S. from the Philippines. I’ve seen how a college education can change the lives of not only the recipient of it, but it can change the lives of their families for generations to come.”

The couple’s generosity has extended to their alma mater, as well, committing funds to scholarships, the Annual Fund and the Wilson Field Project.

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