Gloria Goosby sees ‘a lot of triumph’ in Black History Month

Furman celebrates Black History Month
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Before she accepted the job offer from Furman, Gloria Goosby needed to Google a few things.

For nearly 15 years, she had worked at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, whose student body is statistically more diverse – about 59% of GSU students are white, compared to 77% at Furman. The environment at a smaller liberal arts and sciences university like Furman would be different, said Goosby, who graduated from GSU in 2004.

Gloria Goosby, director of annual giving

One of the things Goosby looked up was whether the “Divine Nine” – the nine historically African American Greek-letter organizations organized under the umbrella of the National Pan-Hellenic Council – were represented on campus. Furman’s chapters of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity were signs that “the student population could sustain Black Greek life,” she said.

She also researched the diversity of Furman’s staff, particularly curious to see if there were other people of color in the development office, “specifically Black folks on the front lines asking for money,” she said. Finally, she looked over the “Seeking Abraham” report written by Furman’s Task Force on Slavery and Justice.

Overall, Goosby was impressed. She accepted the offer and became Furman’s new director of annual giving in 2020.

“I think that Furman is being intentional about reckoning with its past,” she said. “That was very important.”

Within her first few weeks at Furman, she had seen the school’s first celebration of Joseph Vaughn Day and the annual MLK Community Breakfast. Later that year, she also saw how her new school reacted to the news of George Floyd’s murder by police.

“I read the statement that Furman put out, and I was just shocked that it had even been written,” Goosby said. “I was very proud of it. It felt very authentic to me. I’ve seen other institutions that would have maybe put out a statement of some sort, but it wouldn’t have come from senior leadership, and it definitely wouldn’t have come from the president.”

The statement from Furman University President Elizabeth Davis showed “true concern for the belonging of everyone who is here and what the community has been experiencing,” Goosby said, as did other actions the university has taken following the recommendations of the task force, such as the renaming of Furman Hall and the Clark Murphy Housing Complex.

She sees February as a chance for members of the Furman community to “gain empathy – to take several moments to pause and think and talk about the lived experiences of their African American colleagues.”

She also hopes that Black History Month has helped Furman’s students, faculty and staff “celebrate with us over the gains that have been made, especially here,” she said. “There’s a lot of triumph in the African American story.”