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Class of 2030 launches their first year at Furman’s Convocation
Members of the Furman Class of 2030 walk to McAlister Auditorium during Convocation on Monday. Photo by Nathan Gray, Furman University.
Libby Adams ’27, president of the Student Government Association, speaks during Convocation. Photo by Nathan Gray, Furman University.
Furman University’s Class of 2030 made this year’s opening convocation an emotional Monday morning for university President Elizabeth Davis.
As she looked out on the first-year class, a sea of purple t-shirts in McAlister Auditorium, she saw them taking their first steps toward the rest of their lives as Paladins. This is Davis’s final academic year as Furman’s president.
“Which means your first chapter here and my last one are being written at the same time,” she told the more than 700 students in the Class of 2030, Furman’s largest class in about a decade. “I hope you will let this be the beginning of an extraordinary journey, one that changes you the way it has changed generations before you – and the way it changed me.”
President Elizabeth Davis poses with four of the five students named Furman Fellows of the Class of 2027 during Convocation. From left, Ava Cresto, Alie Mason, Anastasiia Savchenko, Nablia Wilson, and Davis. Photo by Nathan Gray, Furman University.
Students are preparing to take on rigorous classes that will push them in their chosen fields while providing a well-rounded education. Beyond the classroom they will dive into research, internships and international travel through study-away trips. Through things like the On Discourse initiative, they will learn to seek deeper understandings of the world around them through facilitated constructive discourse across differences.
And they might meet their best friends, like Furman Student Government Association President Libby Adams ’27 did. Adams gave the class a piece of advice it took her years to understand: “Do the best you can do with what you know, until you know better. Then do better.”
She urged the new students to tap into every resource available to them and lean on the expertise of their professors as they navigate the next four years.
“It’s worth it, as long as you pour yourself into it. Make every class, every lesson, everyday count,” she said. “Isn’t that the whole point?”
Faculty, students and staff receive accolades
Rosa Mary Bodkin Award
- Kendal H. Clement ’27, politics and international affairs and Spanish major from Charlotte, North Carolina
Furman Fellows Class of 2027
- Ava E. Cresto ’27, health sciences major from Winston-Salem, North Carolina
- Nathan P. Johnson, politics and international affairs major from Atlanta, Georgia
- Alie V. Mason, education major from Hoschton, Georgia
- Anastasiia Savchenko, mathematics and economics major from Ukraine
- Nabila E. Wilson, sustainability science major from Houston, Texas
