COUNCILWOMAN DR. BELINDA GERGEL
DISTRICT III
Post Office Box 147 Term: 2012
Columbia, SC 29217 District III
Belinda F. Gergel is a native South Carolinian with a passionate love of the history of her home state. Following her graduation from Columbia College in 1972, she earned an M.Ed and Ph.D. from Duke University, where her graduate work focused on women’s higher education in the South in the early twentieth century.
Dr. Gergel is a career educator. She taught early in her career as a social studies teacher at C. A. Johnson High School in Richland District One and spent most of her professional life as a professor and college administrator at Columbia College. At her retirement, Dr. Gergel was Chair of the Department of History and Political Science at Columbia College. Dr. Gergel was twice selected as the College’s “Outstanding Faculty Member” and in 2006 was awarded the Columbia College Medallion, the highest award presented by Columbia College.
Since her retirement in 2001, Dr. Gergel has focused her attention on scholarship and civic service. She is the author of several works on South Carolina history and most recently co-edited Matthew J. Perry: The Man, His Times, and His Legacy, published by USC Press in 2004. She is a frequent lecturer on topics of women’s history, local history, and southern Jewish history. She has served on city commissions concerned with homelessness and governance. Dr. Gergel has long been active in local historic preservation efforts and served as President of the Board of Directors of the Historic Columbia Foundation from 2003-2005. Dr. Gergel is also devoted gardener and is a member of the Board of Trustees of Brookgreen Gardens, the Southern Garden Historical Society, and Columbia Green.
Dr. Gergel lives in the heart of the city on Pendleton Street and is a resident of the University Hill neighborhood. She was elected to Columbia City Council in April 2008. She is married to attorney Richard Mark Gergel, and they have two sons, Richie, who is a graduate student in journalism at Columbia University, and Joseph, who is a senior at New York University. | 
