With a clear understanding of what separates the excellence of Furman, we have focused over the last several years on an innovative, carefully developed four-year experience we call The Furman Advantage. Combining academic requirements with guided reflection, internships and externships with attentive career preparation, this program has been structured to bring the power of a Furman education to a new level of impact. And it is working.

We know this because we are doing what almost no other university is willing to do: regularly commissioning third-party research to ask our students what they are getting out of their Furman education and how we can make it ever more valuable – and then, through the guidance of a team of faculty and staff, continuing to make it better. Our students are telling us unequivocally: The Furman Advantage is boosting their academic success, their self-reliance and their clarity about their professional ambitions and the lives they want to lead.

But as successful as The Furman Advantage is proving to be, it is never the Furman way to settle. Across nearly 200 years of trial and testing, Furman has thrived and grown, through world wars, economic calamities and profound social and cultural upheaval. From our founding in 1826 through our relocation from downtown Greenville in 1958, from the desegregation of Furman in 1965 through the decision to leave the South Carolina Baptist Convention in 1992, Furman has never shied from taking bold steps forward. Building on this spirit of ambition and determination, today’s Furman will rise to a new challenge.

Thanks to the support of donors, friends and advocates, Furman will carry forward its legacy of leadership, reward students with the finest possible undergraduate education and establish itself as a national model for liberal arts and sciences impact. With clarity of purpose about these goals, we have prioritized CLEARLY FURMAN investments in six areas, as outlined in the following pages.

Individually, these priorities advance different aspects of Furman’s value as an educator striving in all ways to live up to our mission – of challenging and supporting “lifelong learners through rigorous inquiry, transformative experiences, and deep reflection to lead lives of meaning and consequence.” Collectively, these campaign objectives will have an even greater result, raising every aspect of the university’s lifelong value to students and our national standing as a liberal arts and sciences leader.

Through this campaign, we can and we will transform the quality and reach of Furman and the lives of our students forever. Please join us.

Elizabeth Davis
President