Summary

Furman University is a private, coeducational, liberal arts college in Greenville, South Carolina, United States. Furman is one of the oldest[2] institutions in South Carolina. Founded in 1826, Furman enrolls approximately 2,800 undergraduate and 525 graduate students on its 750-acre (304 ha) campus.

In recent years, more Furman University graduates have gone on to earn more Ph.D. degrees than those of any other private liberal arts college in the South, according to a survey conducted by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center.[3] Today Furman offers majors and programs in 42 subjects. Most of Furman's 2,800 undergraduates are from the South Atlantic region, but more than 40 states and 15 foreign countries are represented in the student population. Furman is a member of Associated Colleges of the South.

History

Furman was founded in 1826 at Edgefield, SC as a Men's Academy and Theological Institute. It relocated in Greenville, South Carolina in 1850. It was named for Richard Furman of Charleston, SC, a prominent minister and president of the first Baptist convention in America, the Triennial Convention.[4] The original school building from that campus was transported to the Greenville 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 1956 Furman began construction on its new campus, just five miles (8 km) north of downtown Greenville. Classes on the new campus began in 1958. Now a private, secular university, Furman was founded by, and affiliated with the South Carolina Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention until separating in the 1991 - 1992 school year. The university's motto remains Christo et Doctrinae (For Christ and Learning). According to Furman University's official website, the university "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...". Furman University is part of the Duke Endowment. The Duke Endowment is a private foundation established by industrialist and philanthropist James B. Duke. The market value of the Duke Endowment's assets have grown to approximately $3.5 billion. From 1924-2007, the Duke Endowment has given Furman $110 million,[5] which is 5% of the Duke Endowment's total awards.

The current president is Rodney A. Smolla, formerly the Dean of Washington and Lee University's law school. He became the 11th president of the university, effective July 1, 2010.[6] replacing David E. Shi, a 1973 alumnus of Furman. Shi has been a national leader in colleges' working to promote sustainability and to become carbon neutral.

Academics

Furman offers majors and programs in 42 subjects. Undergraduates come from 46 states and 31 countries. Furman has produced six Rhodes scholars and 17 Truman scholars.[7]

The middle 50 percent of SAT scores for the class entering Fall 2010 had the ranges: Verbal: 590 to 690, Quantitative: 590 to 690, Total: 1200 to 1380.[8] However, neither SAT nor ACT scores are required for admission.[9]

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 was ranked no. 15 in the list of the Washington Monthly "Top US Liberal Arts Colleges Rankings", based on its production of research valuable to society and its commitment to national service.[10] The university's engaged learning academic program, which promotes problem-solving, project-oriented, experience-based education, has received high praise from The Princeton Review, Peterson's Competitive Colleges , The Fiske Guide to Colleges and The College Board College Handbook. In terms of the quality of the students, Furman was ranked no. 30 in the SSRN's "U.S Colleges and Universities Preference Rankings" (based on the choice to enroll of high-achieving students in US)[11] The Chronicle of Higher Education noted Furman was no. 32 in the nation for the percentage of National Merit Scholars in its 2005-2006 freshman class.[12]. Furman was ranked no. 2 on The Daily Beast's 2011 edition of "Most Rigorous Colleges in America."[13] U.S. News and World Report ranked Furman 42nd in its 2011 list of the nation's top liberal arts schools, the highest ranking of any South Carolina institution in that category. Overall, the school was ranked 81st out of 700 nationally in combined rankings of both research universities and liberal arts schools.

According to a report from the American Institute of Physics, Furman is one of 35 schools whose physics departments offer a bachelor’s as their highest degree to average 10 or more undergraduate degrees for the classes of 2003, 2004 and 2005.[14] By survey, The Princeton Review ranked Furman University as number 9 in their top 10 most socially conservative schools in 2009.[15]

Campus

A 40-acre (16.2 ha) lake is at the center of the 750-acre (304 ha) , wooded campus. Most buildings are of Georgian-style architecture. Many academic buildings and student residences stand around the lake, including the Bell Tower, which figures highly in school insignias and is a replica of the tower that once existed on the men's campus in downtown Greenville. Today, the campus is anchored by its newly expanded 128,000-square foot (12,000 m²) James B. Duke Library. Informally known as "The Country Club of the South," Furman was named one of the 362 most beautiful places in America by the American Society of Landscape Architects.

The fall 1997 issue of Planning for Higher Education names Furman as a benchmark campus for its landscaping. The 1997 Princeton Review ranked Furman fifth in its list of beautiful campuses, based on student ratings of campus beauty. Students are required to live on campus, except senior year when they may participate in a lottery for a chance to live off campus.

On the north side of the lake are the four Greenbelt housing cabins,[16] and the Cliffs Cottage, which is a "green" building built as a showcase home in conjunction with Southern Living magazine.[17] Most juniors and seniors live in North Village Apartments, located on the north side of the Cliffs Cottage. The remaining upperclassmen are either placed in dorm-style residence halls or enter a lottery to receive an apartment in The Vinings, an apartment complex next to campus owned by the university. There are two other residence complexes (called Lakeside and South Housing) which house freshmen and sophomores. The campus also includes an Asian Garden, the centerpiece of which is the Place of Peace, a Buddhist temple moved to the site from Japan and reconstructed by traditional carpenters. A replica of the cabin that Henry David Thoreau inhabited while writing On Walden Pond is located on the west side of the lake.[18]

Student life

All full-time students, except those who are married or living at home with their parents or guardians, are required to live on campus in university housing. Furman undergraduates can choose between south campus housing and lakeside housing. South Housing includes the Geer, Manly, Poteat, Blackwell and McGlothlin dorms. Lakeside Housing includes the Gambrell, Ramsey, Judson, Townes, McBee, Haynsworth, and Chiles dorm. All student housing has air-conditioning, closets, wireless Internet access, and washer-dryer usage. The North Village is an apartment complex that offers apartment-style living for upperclassmen. North Village apartments offer two or four bedrooms, living room, full kitchen, balcony, two vanity areas, two bathrooms and closet and storage space. Within each bedroom, a full-size bed, desk, desk chair and dresser/hutch is provided for each resident.

Furman University students are required to have a meal plan and freshmen are required to have an unlimited meal plan. The main dining facility is the Daniel Dining Hall. Renovated in 2006, Daniel Hall offers buffet-style dining and an Einstein Bros. Bagels location upstairs. The PalaDEN, dubbed the "P-Den" by students, offers Chick-Fil-A, Moe's Southwest Grill, Freshens, and Pan Geos. In 2011, a Barnes and Noble was built on campus, where students can get coffee from Starbucks.

Furman University Student Government Association (SGA) works under a semi-Presidential system. SGA is made up of the executive council, and president, secretary, and two senators for each class. Each class elects a president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer, . Upon election council members are assigned within one of six committees to specialize in a particular area of student needs.

Furman Housing and Residence Life delegates halls and lounges for campus fraternities and sororities. Furman University has seven fraternities and seven sororities. Fraternities on campus: Beta Theta Pi, Kappa Alpha Order, Kappa Alpha Psi, Pi Kappa Phi, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Sigma Chi, and Sigma Nu.[19] Sororities on campus: Alpha Delta Pi, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Chi Omega, Delta Delta Delta, Delta Gamma, Kappa Delta, and Kappa Kappa Gamma.[20] The school also has two music based fraternities including Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, a men's social fraternity with emphasis in music, along with Sigma Alpha Iota, a primarily female professional music organization.

Athletics

Furman competes in NCAA Division I athletics and is one of the smallest NCAA Division I schools in the nation. Furman fields 18 men’s and women’s teams, as well as 16 club sports and many intramural teams.[21] The team nickname, the Paladins, was first used by a Greenville, South Carolina, sportswriter in the 1930s. For many years the name “Paladins” just referred to Furman’s basketball team. Until 1963 the school’s baseball teams were known as the "Hornets" and the football teams as the "Hurricanes". On September 15 of that year, the student body voted to make "Paladins" the official nickname of all of the university's intercollegiate athletic teams. The university is a member of the Southern Conference. Furman is the only liberal arts college to be ranked in Sports Illustrated Top 100 America's Best Sports Colleges[22] and has 32 former student-athletes competing at the professional level- the most of any Southern Conference member school.[citation needed]

In 1988 Furman won the NCAA I-AA (currently Football Championship Subdivision) National Football Championship. Furman also appeared in the 1985 and 2001 NCAA I-AA National Football Championship games, but lost (to Georgia Southern and Montana, respectively). Furman, Colgate, Lehigh, Fordham, Richmond and Villanova remain the only private universities that have appeared in the I-AA Football Championship game, and Furman was the first private school to win it, with Richmond becoming the second 20 years later. The Paladins have also claimed 12 Southern Conference football titles, more than any school in league history.

Furman has had several successful golf teams, especially in women's golf. Few collegiate woman golf programs have produced more outstanding professionals than Furman, which has 11 former Lady Paladins on the LPGA tour, including two Hall of Fame inductees (Betsy King and Beth Daniel). Furman has claimed 13 Southern Conference Women's Golf Championships. PGA Tour players Brad Faxon, Stuart Cook, and Bruce Fleisher played for the Paladins.

Coached by Doug Allison, the men's soccer team has been ranked as high as no. 3 in the nation and has produced a share of professional players.[23] Former star Clint Dempsey, who now plays club soccer for Fulham F.C. in the English Premier League, was the only American player to score a goal at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.[24] Dempsey also scored notable goals in the US upset of Spain in 2009, the near defeat of Brazil in 2009 and the 1-1 draw with England at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Ricardo Clark, a current member of the United States Men's National Soccer Team and Eintracht Frankfurt also played soccer for Furman. Current MLS players Shea Salinas and Jonathan Leathers of the Vancouver Whitecaps also played for the Paladins.

Furman men's tennis coach Paul Scarpa is the all-time winningest coach in American college tennis history, with a record spanning over 830 wins. A Florida State alumnus, he is a member of the South Carolina Tennis Hall of Fame and USTA Southern Section Hall of Fame, inventor of clay-court line Tenex, and has coached 108 All-Southern Conference players in his 46-year career.

Furman's Rugby Club team won the East Coast Collegiate Division III Championship three years in a row from 2003-2005.[25] Started in 1998, the club excels in Division III rugby union.

Furman Men's Lacrosse Club team is a member of the Southeast Lacrosse Conference in the Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association. They will be adding NCAA Division 1 Lacrosse as soon as 2014.[26]