An education that transforms is always about more than sharing knowledge. It is also about inspiring new ways of asking questions and evaluating ideas, of advocating effectively for your own view, and of understanding that mind and spirit, brain and body, individual and community thrive in mutual intersection and influence.
Today’s students and families increasingly expect that premier colleges and universities will not only support intellectual growth but also develop the whole person for leadership in a diverse society. These expectations suit Furman well, because the root of our academic and campus experience has always been that every person can shape, even markedly, the larger whole.
CLEARLY FURMAN will take this Furman approach to education further, investing in programs dedicated to physical and emotional wellness, rich social engagement and community collaboration, and spaces built for independent exploration and teamwork. As we do, we will drive forward new and vibrant programs that foster appreciation of the connection between the self and the world.
This gift would renovate and create an integrative one-stop academic and student support hub in the James B. Duke Library.
Students would have enhanced access to high-touch, high-tech, cutting-edge professional and peer-support resources and services, including the co-location of the Center for Engaged Learning, Student Office for Accessibility Resources, Center for Academic Success, the Peer-Assisted Learning Center, the Cothran Center, Pre-Health/Pre-Law Counseling and the Faculty Development Center. This collaborative integrative service center would ensure seamless coordination of services and staffing. The Academic Commons would serve as a cornerstone for student retention, progression and completion of their educational pathway.
In keeping with Furman’s student-centric approach to educating the whole student, donors will drive the ongoing health programming that builds the lifelong healthy habits that enable our students to maximize the enduring benefit of a Furman education.
At Furman, we embrace meaningful diversity and inclusion as embodied by both implicit values and explicit practices in all of our endeavors.
In Fall 2017, Furman launched the Center for Inclusive Communities with the express interest of fostering diversity and inclusion into each student’s experience through The Furman Advantage and Pathways.
A Furman education is at once expansive and intimate, big-thinking and individualized. We aim not simply to inspire powerful intellectual growth in our students but also to reveal the extensive personal resources they possess to lift themselves and others, whatever challenges may come. Through this campaign, we will take dramatic new strides in helping our students develop deep clarity about their potential and grow into multi-faceted contributors to communities, businesses and organizations of every kind around the world.
