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Inside Furman is published monthly during the school year by the Furman University Department of Marketing and Public Relations. For story ideas, e-mail John Roberts, editor.
The more things change…
For a glimpse of what the coming year will hold, one need only flip back a few chapters in the life of the university.
Furman's last big birthday celebration - the school's sesquicentennial - was held in 1975-76. Alumni, faculty, staff and students marked the celebration with scholarly meetings, seminars, lectures, musical events and dinners.
President Gordon Blackwell launched the event at Fall Convocation, calling it "a year of remembering with gratitude that what we have today is ours because of the struggle and sacrifice of previous generations."
During the next six months Furman would dedicate a building (the Homozel Mickel Daniel Music Building), host a series of lectures by Stanley Wells, director of the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-upon-Avon, and bestow honorary degrees on Anderson College President Cordell Maddox (a Furman alum) and Greenville Mayor Max Heller.
A committee of trustees, faculty and students under the direction of religion professor Joe M. King worked for four years to plan the events. Furman produced a film, linking the university's past and present, titled Furman - For All Seasons.
The university also erected special signage around campus and in downtown Greenville to mark the occasion. The university even incorporated the sesquicentennial logo into its letterhead that year. English professor Alfred Reid also published a school history: Furman University, Toward a New Identity 1925-1975. Reid died in March of 1976, shortly after the book was published.