![\"\"](\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Thomas-Joiner-150.jpg\")
Thomas Joiner.<\/p><\/div>\n
Thomas Joiner, Professor of Music<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThomas Joiner has worked as a conductor, violinist, chamber player, and educator across the globe. At Furman, he conducted the Furman Symphony Orchestra in orchestral, operatic, and oratorio performances each year and taught violin. He also served as the music director and conductor of the Hendersonville Symphony Orchestra (N.C.).\u00a0 For more than three decades, Joiner served as a member of the artist-faculty of the Brevard Music Center (N.C.), as \u00a0the William J. Pendergrast, Sr. Artist Chair and concertmaster of the Brevard Music Festival Orchestra. In 2009, Joiner and his wife, violist Anna Barbrey Joiner, received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Brevard Music Center. Joiner has performed with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and the Louisville Orchestra. A proud graduate of Furman, He previously taught at the University of Georgia School of Music, and served as the South Carolina president of the American String Teachers Association and a member of the national board of directors of the Conductors Guild. As an artistic ambassador for the United States Information Agency, Joiner presented recitals with pianist Douglas Weeks during a five-week tour of western Africa and the Middle East. In 2016, he recorded a CD with Jan Mulder and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013 Hugh Floyd, chair, Department of Music<\/p>\n \u201cTom has always been an active performer, both as a violinist and as a conductor. For many years he taught and performed at the well-known Brevard Music Center and was music director of the Hendersonville Symphony. One particularly memorable concert he conducted at Furman included a Beethoven symphony, a concert piece by Debussy featuring faculty clarinet colleague Cecelia Kang, and music from Star Wars, complete with a visit from Darth Vader!\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013 Christopher Hutton,\u00a0professor of music and chair of the faculty<\/p>\n Susan D’Amato.<\/p><\/div>\n Susan Smart D\u2019Amato, Professor of Physics \u201cThroughout her career, Susan D\u2019Amato has been the ‘heart\u2019 of our department and a living embodiment of The Furman Advantage. \u00a0She grew up at Furman: her father, Jim Smart, was a Furman professor, Susan began her collegiate path here, and she returned as a professor.\u00a0 Susan has passionately shared her Furman spirit with students, staff and faculty colleagues through a dedicated career of education, mentoring, service and stewardship. Susan has a knack for knowing where her attention is needed in our community. A couple of years after arriving at Furman, she resurrected our chapter of the Sigma Pi Sigma Honor Society (dormant from 1932 to 1985) so we could recognize student achievement in physics.\u00a0 She aided in bringing the heavens down to our students by acquiring NSF funding to build our observatories. She has been a stalwart advocate for women in science, specifically in physics. And recently, she served as an advisor in the Year 1 & 2 Pathways pilot project. We were excited when she won the Meritorious Advising Award in 2019. She deserves so much more.\u00a0Susan has left an indelible mark upon us that will never fade. She is always welcome to return \u2018home\u2019 whenever she wants!\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013 David Moffett,\u00a0chair, Department of Physics<\/p>\n \u201cSusan embodies compassion, commitment and curiosity. Her genuine love of ideas, deep empathy for others, and entrenched work ethic have made her an impactful mentor, teacher and university administrator, all roles she has filled magnificently in her career at Furman.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013 Linda Bartlett, professor of Spanish<\/p>\n Lloyd Benson.<\/p><\/div>\n Ll<\/strong>oyd Benson, Walter Kenneth Mattison Professor of History<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cT. Lloyd Benson, the Walter Kenneth Mattison Professor of History, joined Furman in 1990. Over the last thirty-one years, he has published numerous scholarly works on pre-Civil War American history, had a deep and abiding interest in the application of digital technology to the study of history, incorporated the use of geographic information systems in his undergraduate teaching, and was an early advocate for the Internet as an open repository of historical sources with his several websites dedicated to late antebellum newspaper editorials and other nineteenth century documents. For his innovative teaching, Lloyd was named Association of Furman Students\u2019 Faculty Member of the Year (1994), received the Alester G. and Janie Earle Furman Award for Meritorious Teaching (1998), and was awarded the South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities\u2019 Teacher of the Year Award (2009). Lloyd is also widely known across campus as an exceptionally caring and thoughtful mentor and advisor to his colleagues and students, as a fount of positivity to all and as an empathetic advocate for open conversation about any conflict. Lloyd has thus passionately considered and practiced new pedagogical ideas and lived out what it means to be a teacher-scholar at Furman.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013 Lane Harris, chair,\u00a0Department of History<\/p>\n \u201cLloyd Benson brings rays of warm sunshine wherever he goes and no matter the challenges he faces. The enthusiasm he exudes for his students and\u00a0teaching about the Civil War era is infectious and speaks to the very best qualities of a Furman education.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013 Marian Strobel, William Montgomery Burnett Professor of History<\/p>\n Cherie Maiden.<\/p><\/div>\n Cherie Maiden, Lois Aileen Coggins Professor of French<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIn 1983, Dr. Cherie Maiden accepted Furman\u2019s invitation to join the faculty as an assistant professor. Ever since, she has modeled to the Furman community what it means to be truly invitational. Kind, gracious and ever patient, Cherie exudes a warm classroom presence that invites students to discover the beauty of the language, literature and culture she loves so deeply. Thanks to a carefully cultivated professional network, she has consistently facilitated cultural and intellectual exchange at Furman outside the classroom, inviting to campus countless authors and other luminaries from places such as Cameroon, Senegal and South Africa. A devoted study away director, she has embraced every chance to introduce her students to life in France, and to support them on that exciting, challenging journey. And as one of the first two Black faculty at Furman, Cherie\u2019s extraordinary mentorship of Furman\u2019s Black students inspired them to establish an award in her honor in 1993. In 2020, the university honored this original award by renaming the Meritorious Award for Diversity & Inclusion the Maiden Invitational Award, evidence that Cherie\u2019s indelible legacy of open-heartedly welcoming students and colleagues into our community will remain long after her well-earned retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2013 Linda Bartlett, chair, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cEveryone who knows Cherie can testify to her warmth, her empathy, her engagement with the world around her.\u00a0Cherie can move mountains without blowing them up, and that has made her an invaluable resource at Furman.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013 Jane Chew, professor of German emerita<\/p>\n Robert Chance.<\/p><\/div>\n Bob Chance, Professor of Art<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cPotter, ceramicist, sculptor, glassblower, musician, craftsman and artist \u2013 Professor Bob Chance is retiring after teaching 47 years, including a notable 33 years at Furman. Bob boasts graduates who have become curators, potters, patrons, aficionados, teachers, ne\u2019er do wells, entrepreneurs, golfers, designers, doctors, nurses and conscious people who know the value of art in living an intentional life.\u00a0The legacy of any art professor is the students who continue on to make art an integral part of their lives \u2013 but the lessons found by working with clay have meaning for all of us. With that in mind, we share his life lessons with clay:<\/p>\n Both students and colleagues are richer for sharing in Bob\u2019s world. We are grateful to have learned patience, ambition, humor, and love while spending time in the studio with him. Bob leaves more than a footprint on Furman, more than a legacy, his retirement leaves us all bereft. Thankfully, it\u2019s not a far trek to the golf course\u2026 .\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013 Ross McClain, chair of the Department of Art<\/p>\n Joe Pollard.<\/p><\/div>\n Joe Pollard, Rose J. Forgione Professor of Biology<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAs is true for many faculty by time of their retirement, Joe has worn many hats in his years at Furman, and he stands out for having done all of them so well. In addition to teaching, advising, and supervising student research, Joe served as herbarium curator, building supervisor, handyman, department cruise director, and preparer of cole slaw for our annual senior picnic. Joe provided effective leadership for the department as chair for a decade. In that time, he oversaw the growth of the department, hiring and then mentoring multiple young faculty and helping us navigate a building renovation and expansion. \u201cWhen I arrived at Furman in 2012, Joe was incredibly kind, welcoming, and patient\u2026\u00a0 I aspire to be the kind of departmental citizen, mentor, and friend that you have always been to all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013 Allison Roark, Herman N. Hipp Associate\u00a0Professor of Biology<\/p>\n Steve Richardson.<\/p><\/div>\n Steve Richardson \u201977, Associate Librarian<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cFollowing in the footsteps of three generations of his family, Steve Richardson graduated from Furman in 1977. He completed his master’s in library science at the University of South Carolina in 1982 and joined Furman as the reference and online services librarian in 1986. A year later Steve introduced the campus to digital resources and never looked back! Steve quickly got to know everyone on campus and built close faculty friendships that would last throughout his years at Furman. In his years at Furman Steve coordinated conferences and served on multiple self-study task forces, steering committees, and advisory boards, but his greatest passion has always been assisting students and faculty with research. Steve is so sought-out by students that \u201cWhere is Steve?\u201d became a running joke at the Research Assistance desk, and co-workers toyed with the idea of attaching a GPS to him so he could be located in the stacks when needed. Steve\u2019s library colleagues describe him as open, supportive, a Renaissance man, humble, steady, even, gracious, encouraging, smart, respectful, mannerly and kind.\u00a0His ongoing challenge to students and colleagues is to \u2018stay curious.\u2019 Steve, we will miss you!\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013\u00a0Caroline Mills, director of libraries<\/p>\n \u201cWhat a joy it always is to work with Steve. He is a Zen master with sources and can somehow seek and summon them even when I don’t know exactly what I am looking for. Steve is rooted in the Upstate, but his knowledge extends all around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013 Joni Tevis, Bennette E. Geer\u00a0Associate Professor of English<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the famous warmth and mentoring of Lloyd Benson to the study away adventures of Joe Pollard to the empathy and\u00a0vision of Cherie Maiden, one of Furman\u2019s first two Black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,45,19,42,52,16,39,49,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-art","category-biology","category-history","category-library","category-modern-languages-and-literature","category-music","category-physics","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Susan-DAmato-150.jpg\")
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/lloyd-benson-150.jpg\")
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\nAlthough Joe\u2019s professional passion and expertise is botany, he also has a deep reservoir of knowledge of ecology, natural history, human history, geography, and all things Furman. He is a quintessential traveler, and through his teaching and research endeavors, he has traveled extensively throughout Europe and Latin America.
\nJoe, we wish you all the best in your retirement. We know we\u2019ll keep in touch in the coming years, and we look forward to sharing more life stories and good puns. So, this isn\u2019t \u2018goodbye\u2019 \u2013 just a time for reflection and to say \u2018thank you.\u2019\u201d
\n\u2013 Greg Lewis, chair, Department of Biology<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Steve-Richardson-150.jpg\")