Happy holidays: Looking back, looking forward

Dear Furman Community,

As we look to the holidays and the new year, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all of you. Your resilience and determination, even as we complete a second year in a pandemic, remind me each and every day that Furman truly is a special place.

Looking back over the past year, I am moved by the contributions of our students, faculty, staff, alumni, families and friends. Together, we have made so much progress toward building a welcoming, inclusive community. To celebrate your work, I highlight below just a few of our 2021 achievements and milestones.

Support for The Furman Advantage

In a resounding endorsement of our innovative approach to offering every student a pathway to an exceptional college experience and a life of meaning and success, The Duke Endowment in March awarded Furman a second $25 million grant to expand and advance The Furman Advantage. The new grant brought The Duke Endowment’s direct total investment in The Furman Advantage to $52.5 million.

So many people across campus have worked tirelessly to make The Furman Advantage a reality. Thanks to the generous support from The Duke Endowment and many others, The Furman Advantage has become integral to the Furman experience.

Honors and accolades

Furman was again recognized as one of the country’s best universities. In this year’s U.S. News & World Report rankings, Furman moved up six spots to No. 46 among the “Best National Liberal Arts Colleges” and made the “Most Innovative Schools” list for the fifth year in a row.

Furman was also recognized among its peer universities for “Best Colleges for Veterans” (2) and “Undergraduate Teaching” (48), and among all universities for “Best First-Year Experience” (49) and “Undergraduate Research” (46).

Among other accolades, Furman was once again selected for inclusion in The Princeton Review’s college guide, “The Best 387 Colleges,” and ranked 15th in the publication’s list of “The Top 20 Best Schools for Making an Impact.” Furman also was included in The Princeton Review’s Guide to Green Colleges.

For the third year in a row, the university earned a STARS Gold rating in recognition of its sustainability achievements from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, which measures and encourages sustainability in all aspects of higher education. Furman now ranks among the top three baccalaureate schools in the United States.

Around the country, people are taking notice of our creativity and determination to provide our students the most impactful learning experience possible. This wouldn’t be possible without all of you.

Where all are welcome

Our campus landscape changed in powerful ways this year.

Look to the new Joseph Vaughn Plaza in front of the Duke Library for a moving reminder of the courage and vision of Joseph Vaughn ’68, who was the first Black undergraduate student at Furman. This past April, we unveiled the statue and dedicated the plaza, sending a message of belonging to all, but also a challenge – that we all have a responsibility to help foster a more inclusive, equitable society. Already this semester, students demonstrated at the plaza – a place where they can gather safely and with purpose – to voice concerns about issues surrounding diversity and inclusion and their desire to make Furman a more welcoming campus.

This year, we also launched a Strategic Diversity Plan and new Vision, Mission and Values Statements. Colleagues from across the university hosted presentations outlining their actions and strategies to support the plan and advance efforts toward a more diverse and inclusive campus.

Members of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee are actively involved in addressing student concerns and needs, creating an inclusive community for historically marginalized members of our community, and centralizing DEI educational resources on campus.

In October, we launched a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Campus Climate Assessment. The results and recommendations will be presented to us this spring and will help inform a review of the role and structure of the Chief Diversity Officer position, for which we will conduct a national search.

We also formally celebrated the Clark Murphy Lakeside Housing Complex, renamed to honor Clark Murphy, a beloved member of the Furman community who was a long-time custodian, groundskeeper and handyman at the Greenville Woman’s College, and the renaming of “James C. Furman Hall” to “Furman Hall” to honor all of the members of the Furman family and community who worked to support and grow the university.

And in June, we named Juneteenth a university holiday after President Biden signed legislation making it a federal holiday.

As you can see, we are working together to create a learning community where diverse individuals can develop a shared sense of belonging and purpose. We’ll continue that work through 2022 and beyond.

Believing in our mission

The generosity of our community has lifted us to new levels of achievement and possibility.

Chris ’78 and Andrea Borch made the largest gift in Furman Athletics history, providing $5 million to fully endow athletics scholarships for men’s and women’s cross-country. Trustee James A. Lanier Jr. ’79 and Mary Anne Anderson Lanier ’79 added a $1 million planned giving commitment to Furman, bringing their total commitment to nearly $2.2 million. Former Trustee Mary Seawell Metz ’58 committed $1 million to the Faculty Development Center. Peace Sullivan, another former trustee, gave $1 million to create the Mary Peace Endowed Scholarship for students with demonstrated financial need.

And on both Dins Day in April and Giving Tuesday in November, Furman family and friends celebrated all things Furman, showing us that investments of all sizes matter. You gave to support student scholarships, athletics, our centers and institutes, study away and so many other experiences. Overall, in fiscal year 2020-2021, you helped raise more than $63.8 million.

This year brought another important development – the establishment of the Black Alumni Council, our newest volunteer leadership organization. The council’s mission is to support both Black alumni and undergraduate students, while also providing critical feedback to the university. Meanwhile, I’m pleased to share that we now have 31 alumni FAN Clubs in the United States, one in Spain, and new clubs planned for this spring.

Institutes for impact

Individually and as a collective, The Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities, The Riley Institute, The Institute for the Advancement of Community Health, and The Hill Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship bring to life The Furman Advantage by bridging academia and real-world experiences. The institutes, working to transform our community, state, region and beyond, have impressive achievements to celebrate from the past year.

The Shi Institute launched its inaugural class of the Sustainability Leadership Initiative through a partnership with Sustain SC. And Furman was the only U.S. school in the International Green Gown Awards’ Benefitting Society category, thanks to an honor received by the Shi Institute’s Community Conservation Corps program.

The Riley Institute continued to lead important community conversations by hosting its three-part StraightTalk series with conversations about structural racism and announced a partnership with South Carolina’s Department of Education to invest $1.3 million in a new after-school and summer-learning leadership program.

This past fall, the Institute for the Advancement of Community Health celebrated the five-year anniversary of its Medical Legal Partnership, one of the institute’s marquee programs upon which IACH was built, and launched its inaugural leadership council in the spring.

The Hill Institute received a transformational gift from Robert ’83 and Margaret Hill ’83 and changed its name to reflect the Hills’ visionary support of Furman’s innovation and entrepreneurship efforts. Additionally, the institute hosted its second annual Paladin Pitch competition in which five competitors received more than $20,000 in grant awards.

Furman Athletics

We had so many reasons to cheer this year for our student-athletes and staff, who adapted to unprecedented disruption from the pandemic. With conference seasons rescheduled, all 18 varsity teams competed during the spring semester.

Furman Athletics won the Commissioners Cup, given to the Southern Conference’s top men’s athletics program, for the first time since 1991, and finished a close second in the Women’s Germann Cup all-sports competition. Furman was also ranked the top national program in the SoCon for the Learfield IMG College Sports Directors Cup competition.

Athletics also introduced the Furman Athletics Fund and had a record-breaking year with more than $10 million in commitments this past spring, including $3 million for men’s and women’s basketball, $1 million for football and $1 million for men’s soccer.

Furman Athletics led the SoCon for the first four games of the football season with a 60% increase in attendance. This was driven by significant enhancements to the gameday experience, including the Furman Fan Zone, with pre-game concerts sponsored by Ingles, and a new student tailgating section in the stadium.

There’s even more to celebrate

To read more about our accomplishments this past year – from engaged learning to community impact to all the ways The Furman Advantage is having an impact on students – please read the 2021 President’s Report, “Begin with Belonging.” The Furman news site, too, always has new stories about the progress of our students and community.

Thank you for all that you do to serve and support Furman and our educational mission. On behalf of Charles and our family, we wish you and your family peace, hope and joy this holiday season and through all of 2022.

Warmly,

Elizabeth Davis
President