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Furman University is a private liberal arts university in Greenville, South Carolina, United States. Founded in 1826 and named for the clergyman Richard Furman, Furman University is the oldest private institution of higher learning in South Carolina. It became a secular university in 1992, while keeping Christo et Doctrinae (For Christ and Learning) as its motto. It enrolls approximately 2,700 undergraduate students and 200 graduate students, representing 46 states and 53 foreign countries, on its 750-acre (304 ha) campus.

History

Beginnings (19th century)

Furman Academy and Theological Institution was established by the South Carolina Baptist Convention and incorporated in December 1825 in Edgefield. With 10 students, it held its first classes January 15, 1828; another source says it opened in January 1827. Through 1850, average enrollment was 10 students, and it constantly tottered on the edge of insolvency. From 1829 to 1834, it operated in the High Hills of the Santee (now Stateburg, South Carolina). Furman closed from 1834 to 1837. When the school reopened, at the urging of the Reverend Jonathan Davis, chairman of the Board of Agents, the school moved to his native Fairfield County, near Winnsboro.

In 1850 the state legislature chartered Furman University. It was not until 1851 that South Carolina Baptists were able to raise the necessary funds for the removal of the school to Greenville, South Carolina.

The University closed from 1861 to 1866, when "most students and several faculty members enlisted in the Confederate forces."

The Furman Institution Faculty Residence serves as a visible reminder of the early history of Furman University and its brief establishment in Fairfield County.

Growth and expansion (20th century)

Furman University has been in its current location since 1958. The Furman Lake and Bell Tower (background; right) are prominent elements of the campus.

Located in the Upstate of South Carolina, Furman University gets snow in the winter, as seen in 2016.

The first school building from the downtown Greenville campus was transported to the current campus, where it still stands. In 1933, students from the Greenville Women's College began attending classes with Furman students. Shortly thereafter, the two schools merged to form the present institution.

In 1924, Furman was named one of four collegiate beneficiaries of the Duke Endowment. Through 2007, Furman has received $110 million from the endowment, which is now one of the nation's largest philanthropic foundations. Three other colleges—Duke, Davidson and Johnson C. Smith—also receive annual support and special grants from the endowment.

In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education found the "separate but equal" policy to be unconstitutional, starting the lengthy process of desegregating public schools. As of that date, Furman, like most Southern colleges, did not accept African Americans as students. Some Furman students began to press for change. In 1955, some students wrote short stories and poems in The Echo, a student literary magazine, in support of integration; school administrators destroyed all 1,500 printed copies. In 1953, Furman began construction on its new campus, five miles (8 km) north of downtown Greenville. Classes on the new campus began in 1958.

By 1963, enough faculty were siding with the students over racial desegregation that Furman's board of trustees voted to admit Black students. Action on the trustees' decision was postponed and it was later overturned by South Carolina's Baptist Convention; desegregated admission was not implemented at Furman until its incoming president, Gordon Blackwell, a past president of Florida State University, made it a condition of his acceptance of the new position. In February 1965 Joe Vaughn, a graduate of Sterling High School, became Furman's first Black undergraduate.

In 1992, Furman ended its affiliation with the South Carolina Baptist Convention and became a private, secular university, while keeping Christo et Doctrinae (For Christ and Learning) as the school's motto. Furman's "heritage is rooted in the non-creedal, free church Baptist tradition which has always valued particular religious commitments while insisting not only on the freedom of the individual to believe as he or she sees fit but also on respect for a diversity of religious perspectives, including the perspective of the non-religious person."

Recent history (21st century)

The 2010s were transformative years for Furman through fundraising, resulting in new buildings, programs, and scholarships. The Because Furman Matters campaign began in 2004 and ended in 2013. The campaign was described as "the largest fundraising campaign ever among private colleges in South Carolina, and is also among the largest undertaken by any of the nation’s liberal arts colleges.". It exceeded its objective of raising $400 million, of which 62% went to the endowment (which was valued at $380 million when the campaign started and increased to $623 million when it ended) and 17% went to building projects. Several such buildings were supported by successful graduates from the university via naming gifts. In 2012, a new $6.4 million facility was built for continuing education. The Herring Center for Continuing Education was supported by Sarah and Gordon Herring, a leader in the television industry who served on committees with HBO and was one of the founders of the Weather Channel. In 2013, the student center went through a $7.75 million expansion and renovation. The alumni and businessman David Trone, together with his wife June, participated through a $3.5 million gift resulting in the center being named the Trone Student Center.

In addition to visible changes in campus buildings, significant donations have also enabled a new campus-wide program presented as The Furman Advantage. The infrastructure and networks necessary to support The Furman Advantage were made possible when Furman received $47 million from The Duke Endowment. The new program, unveiled in 2016, seeks to increase and personalize the experiences of students beyond the classroom. This includes strengthening the university's engagement with the Greenville community, where students are provided with internships and opportunities for engaged learning. For instance, a new program in partnership with Greenville Health System, the Institute for the Advancement of Community Health, provides a conduit for students and faculty to contribute to the community. The Furman Advantage also provides more stipends for students to partake into faculty-mentored research. The growing interest and infrastructure for research at Furman can also be witnessed in the creation of the annual Faculty Scholarship Reception.

While students and visitors are most likely to notice newer and renovated buildings, or experience campus wide programs, changes have also been more subtle in several other aspects. For instance, alumni have continued to fuel the development of scholarship funds for specific purposes. In 2017, a $2.2 million bequest from the late Mary Frances Edwards Garrett was dedicated to a fund for students seeking teaching and ministerial professions.

Task Force on Slavery and Justice

In October 2018, a Task Force on Slavery and Justice, set up by Provost George Shields, issued a report, Seeking Abraham, making recommendations "to acknowledge the role slavery and racism had in the school’s history." The task force is a response an article, "Slavery, Memory and Reconciliation: What is the Furman Legacy?", published in October 2016 in the university newspaper, pointing out that Richard Furman, the university's namesake, and even more so his son James Clement Furman, Furman's first president, were not only slave owners but active defenders of slavery. "Abraham" is a reference to Abraham Sims, a slave at the house of James Furman.

The task force issued 19 recommendations, which were unanimously accepted by Furman's Board of Trustees. James C. Furman hall will be renamed Furman Hall, and a statue will be erected to honor Joseph Vaughn, "the first Black student to attend the school". A tour of the university, "Seeking Abraham", looks at campus "from the perspective of the native people who first called the campus home, the enslaved and laborers, the women who pushed against the Furmans' views, the eventual students and faculty who pushed desegregation forward, and the Baptists who eventually broke with their own Convention.... Much of this history is 'hidden' in the current landscape."

Organization and administration

See also: List of Furman University Presidents

University presidents
President	Years
James Clement Furman	1859–1879
Charles Manly	1881–1897
Andrew Philip Montague	1897–1902
Charles Hallette Judson	1902–1903 (acting)
Edwin McNeill Poteat	1903–1918
Sidney Ernest Bradshaw	1918–1919 (acting)
William Joseph McGlothlin	1919–1933
Bennette Eugene Geer	1933–1938
Robert Norman Daniel	1938 (acting)
John Laney Plyler	1939–1964
Gordon Williams Blackwell	1965–1976
John Edwin Johns	1976–1994
David Emory Shi	1994–2010
Rodney Alan Smolla	2010–2013
Carl F. Kohrt	2013–2014 (interim)
Elizabeth Davis	2014–present

The old campus of Furman University, prior to its relocation under the presidency of John Laney Plyler.

Leadership and guidance to the university is provided by a board of trustees, whose 36 members meet at least three times per academic year and are elected for three-year terms. Former board members may be designated as 'Trustees Emeriti'. These include former Governor and U.S. secretary of education Richard Riley. As of 2017, current board members include Robert Blocker, dean of the school of Music at Yale University, and William Byrd Traxler Jr., Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals. Board members also come from private companies such as ExxonMobil Chemical Company (former president), AT&T (legal counsel), or Michelin (general counsel).

Under the governance of the board of trustees, Furman is led by a President. Elizabeth Davis became Furman's President on July 1, 2014. She is the 12th president of the institution, or 16th when also counting interim presidents. Twelve senior administrators manage academic and administrative departments. These administrators are composed of a provost, four academic deans, and seven other members (e.g., Chief Diversity Officer, General Counsel).

Academics

The Bell Tower, an icon of the university

Furman offers majors and programs in 42 subjects. All students must complete general education requirements as part of the liberal arts curriculum. The general education requirements include mind and body wellness, textual analysis, two natural sciences, math/formal reasoning, two empirical studies of human behavior, history, ultimate question, foreign language, and world culture. Furman is not divided into colleges, but includes centers and institutes such as the David E. Shi Center for Sustainability, the Richard W. Riley Institute (on leadership), and the Institute for the Advancement of Community Health.

Between 1996 and 2003, 308 Furman graduates received Ph.D. degrees, the most by any Southern liberal arts college, according to a survey by the National Opinion Research Center. Furman has produced 20 Truman Scholars, as well as several Rhodes scholars and recipients of Goldwater, Fulbright and National Science Foundation Awards.

Rankings

Academic rankings
Liberal arts
U.S. News & World Report	46
Washington Monthly	102
National
Forbes	96
WSJ/College Pulse	135

In 2019, Furman University was the highest-ranked institution of higher learning in South Carolina and one of the best universities of the South of US by Forbes, and the 5th-best liberal arts college in the South by U.S. News & World Report. For 2020, it was also ranked #5 most innovative liberal arts college by U.S. News. It is considered to be a "more selective" school. Furman is also featured in The Princeton Review's "Best 378 Colleges" list, where it is named a "Best Southeastern College" and ranked #9 in the impact schools category.

Furman has also been mentioned in other specialized lists such as The Daily Beast's 2011 edition of "Most Rigorous Colleges in America", where it was ranked 2nd above Columbia, Harvard and Yale. It was also ranked 30th among U.S. colleges and universities in an NBER working paper based on the choice to enroll of the highest-achieving students in US.

Over time, Furman has also been featured in specialized rankings such as the Washington Monthly rankings based on its production of valuable research to society and its commitment to national service, where it was ranked 15th in the nation. Business Insider also ranked Furman in fifth place on its list of universities committed to national service in 2016. Furman ties in fourth place among all liberal arts in the nation in number of Truman Scholars. Its undergraduate research program has been ranked as high as fourth in the U.S. News Best Undergraduate Research Programs along with Stanford, MIT and Michigan.

Furman ranked first for number of undergraduates receiving PhDs among all liberal arts colleges in the South from 1996 to 2003 and 22nd among all liberal arts in the nation. From 2006 to 2015 Furman ranked first in the South and 26th among all liberal arts in the nation. Furman ranked 6th in percentage of graduates that went on to receive PHds from 2006 to 2017 among all the universities in the South, and 76th among all universities in the nation.