{"id":9593,"date":"2021-10-22T14:51:08","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T14:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2021\/11\/03\/its-an-important-time-to-give-back\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:44:08","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T19:44:08","slug":"its-an-important-time-to-give-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/its-an-important-time-to-give-back\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s an important time to give back\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s easy to get Robert Hill \u201983 talking fondly about his alma mater.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun to talk about Furman,\u201d says the retired executive and member of the Furman Board of Trustees. \u201cI think it\u2019s a really special place. It\u2019s a great school with strong leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hill and his wife, Margaret Hill \u201983, have shown their dedication to their university in many ways through the years, including service as past chairs of the Richard Furman Society executive committee and past members of the Because Furman Matters Campaign executive committee. The Hill Atrium and Hill Courtyard of the Trone Student Center are named in their honor, as is a biogeochemistry lab in the Townes Center for Science. They also support the Partners Scholarship Program and the Cothran Center for Vocational Reflection.<\/p>\n

And now they are supporting the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship with an endowment fund. To recognize that commitment, the institute will be known as The<\/a> Robert and Margaret Hill Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurshi<\/a>p.<\/p>\n

\"Anthony

Anthony Herrera, Furman\u2019s chief innovation officer and executive director of The Hill Institute.<\/p><\/div>\n

The naming is fitting, says Anthony Herrera, Furman\u2019s chief innovation officer and executive director of The Hill Institute, noting the Hills\u2019 initial \u201cseed\u201d investment that prompted the institute\u2019s founding.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were such a catalyst in getting the university to take the first step to launch this institute,\u201d Herrera says. \u201cThey started the journey that brought me to campus to take this role on. Not only have they been supporters, they\u2019ve been partners in building it step by step and brick by brick.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hill Institute was launched in August 2018 with Herrera\u2019s hiring. With the mission of developing leaders into entrepreneurially minded thinkers and doers, the institute has helped introduce the Furman Business Innovation Accelerator<\/a>, the GVL Starts program<\/a>, the Class E podcast<\/a> and the Paladin Pitch<\/a> competition.<\/p>\n

These accomplishments, and the success of The Hill Institute as a whole, have their roots in The Furman Advantage, says Robert Hill.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that really enables us to do some neat things as a university and invest in our student body appropriately,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s an important anchor \u2013 and I\u2019m not sure we\u2019d invest if we didn\u2019t have a healthy strategy around The Furman Advantage and creating those experiences for students.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hills\u2019 endowment will allow the institute to continue its ongoing work and create more connections across campus, Herrera says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you think about a domain that can connect chemistry and communication studies, or philosophy and business \u2013 that\u2019s innovation and entrepreneurship,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s where the institute is so transformational.\u00a0 This will bring all the departments, all the disciplines, all of our divisions across campus together in a common ground. We\u2019re just barely starting to scratch the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n

Herrera\u2019s leadership, as well as that of Furman President Elizabeth Davis, is inspiring to the Hills, they say.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hills have worked tirelessly to position the institute to have a continued, significant impact on the student experience and in the Greenville community, as well as in South Carolina and beyond,\u201d said Furman University President Elizabeth Davis. \u201cThe Hills\u2019 commitment will establish a significant foundational endowment for the institute that will help it to build on and expand its efforts. We are immensely grateful for their support.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re making a gift to Furman, you\u2019re investing behind people, too,\u201d Robert Hill says.<\/p>\n

As Furman alums and parents \u2013 their son, Marshall Hill, graduated in 2012 \u2013 \u201cFurman has been good to us through the years,\u201d Hill says.<\/p>\n

\u201cA little bit of this is giving back to people who gave to us when we were students there,\u201d he says. \u201cWe were impacted by great professors, and we made great friends at Furman, and that\u2019s been uplifting, too. It\u2019s an important time to give back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s easy to get Robert Hill \u201983 talking fondly about his alma mater. \u201cIt\u2019s fun to talk about Furman,\u201d says the retired executive and member of the Furman Board of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":9251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,17,81,30],"tags":[1128,1129],"class_list":["post-9593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-administrative","category-centers-and-institutes","category-innovation-and-entrepreneurship","category-top-stories","tag-margaret-hill","tag-robert-hill"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9593","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=9593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}