Wofford College

Wofford College, established in 1854 and related to the United Methodist Church, is a selective, independent, liberal arts college of 1,525 students located in downtown Spartanburg, South Carolina, United States. The historic 175 acre campus is recognized as a national arboretum and is one of the few four-year institutions in the southeastern United States founded before the American Civil War that still operates on its original campus. The College features “The Village,” which provides distinctive apartment-style housing for seniors, and is listed on the President’s Community Service Honor Roll and in the annual “Open Doors” report for providing studies abroad opportunities for its students.

Wofford was founded with a bequest of $100,000 from the Rev. Benjamin Wofford (1780–1850), a Methodist minister and Spartanburg native who sought to create a college for "literary, classical, and scientific education in my native district of Spartanburg." The college's Main Building is the oldest structure on campus and was designed by the noted Charleston architect Edward C. Jones. In 1941, the college was awarded a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's oldest academic honor society, and the Beta of South Carolina chapter was the first at a private college in South Carolina.

The academic year consists of a four-month fall semester, a one month January term called the Interim, and a four-month spring semester.

Wofford is ranked 64th in the annual US News & World Report list of national liberal arts colleges. In 2010, Forbes ranked it 58th on Forbes List of America's 650 Best Colleges.

Wofford's colors are old gold and black. The school mascot is the Terrier.

Overview
Operating continuously on its original campus in the City of Spartanburg, the Wofford College Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The campus now consists of 48 buildings on 175 acre. In 2002, The entire campus was designated as an arboretum, and Wofford is a member of the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta. The campus has been designated as "the Roger Milliken Arboretum."

Wofford has a 78 percent four-year graduation rate (82.3 graduate within 6 years) and in 2009, a 37% percent alumni giving rate. The mid-50% SAT range of the class that entered in 2010 was 1,160-1,340. 56 percent of the incoming freshman class in 2010 finished in the top 10 percent of their high school class. Wofford’s performance on the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) ranks with the nation’s best colleges and universities. Details may be found in “Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter,” by George D. Kuh, Jillian Kinzie and Associates (San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2nd edition, 2010). In 2010, Forbes ranked it 58th in America's Best Colleges.

Wofford College Historic District
The Wofford College Historic District consists of the Main Building, which was designed by Edward C. Jones in the Italianate style, and six two-story brick residences. It was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Gold, Black, and Green
A number of recent “green highlights” for Wofford have included the establishment of a campus Office of Community Sustainability; the work toward finalizing the campus Climate Action Plan; the college’s Sustainable Living Initiative aimed at residence halls and other areas of student life; the development of the interdisciplinary environmental studies program; the renovation and restoration of the old Glendale Mill office into the Goodall Environmental Studies Center, the first academic building in South Carolina to be LEED Platinum certified; and the Wofford Santee Cooper Lecture Series on Sustainability and Energy.

Faculty
One hundred and twenty-seven full-time faculty teach at the college, 92 percent of whom have earned a doctorate or equivalent terminal degree. The FTE faculty to student ratio is 1:11.

Majors and minors
Wofford offers academic majors in Accounting, Art History, Biology, Business Economics, Chemistry, Computer Science, Chinese Language and Culture, Economics, English, Environmental Studies, Finance, French, German, Government, History, Humanities, Intercultural Studies, Intercultural Studies for Business, Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics, Psychology, Religion, Sociology, Spanish and Theater.

The college also offers pre-professional programs in Teacher Education (secondary certification), Dentistry, Medicine, Law, Ministry and Veterinary Science. The college's Army ROTC program was established in 1919.

International Programs
The college's Office of International Programs helps students select from over 200 programs in 59 countries. Wofford consistently ranks in the nation’s top ten in the Institute of International Education Open Doors Survey, which is based on a comparison of the number of students earning credits abroad in a given year to the number of students in the graduating class. Wofford’s 2009 score was 93 percent, compared to the Lincoln Commission national average of 9 percent of graduates who earn credits abroad. The college has had six Fulbright English Teaching assistantships in the past four years as well as two Rotary Ambassadorial scholarships.

Interim program
The Interim program is designed to provide students with opportunities for new experiences outside the realm of traditional academics and allows students to become involved in departments outside their academic majors. Interims generally fall into one of four categories. In the most common type, students enroll in faculty-proposed projects on campus. These projects range from participation in theatre to pottery, knitting and short story writing. Students may elect to enroll in internship projects that are supervised by faculty, but involve working off-campus in legal, medical, dental, congressional, corporate, or non-profit settings. Students may propose independent research projects under the supervision of a faculty sponsor. Finally, faculty-led travel projects take groups of students and professors to study in other parts of the United States or in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, or Australia. Recent travel projects have included study in England and Ireland, South Africa, Peru, Brazil, Belize, Vietnam, China and Japan.

Athletics


The Wofford Terriers compete in NCAA Division I in the Southern Conference. In the 2010 NCAA Division I graduation success report, 9 of 13 Wofford teams posted GRS scores of 100, the highest available mark. For the past 16 years, the Carolina Panthers have made their summer training camp home at Wofford. The Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas (a high school all-star football game) is played at Wofford's Gibbs Stadium.

Wofford is represented by 18 men and women's varsity sports. Gibbs Stadium, opened in 1996, is the home field for Terrier football games. The baseball team plays its home games at Russell C. King Field, and volleyball and men's and women's basketball teams play in the Benjamin Johnson Arena of the Campus Life Building, opened in 1981. Soccer teams play on Snyder Field, which was the college's football stadium through 1995.

Student life
Wofford offers a self-contained environment (93% of the students live on campus). The Village apartment-style housing for the senior class was a 2008 "Dorm of Distinction" as chosen by the University Business Magazine. Phase V of the Village, an $11 million project, opened in the fall of 2011. It added 80 beds in loft apartments, bringing the capacity of The Village to 428 students. It also houses the Center for Professional Excellence, specialized classroom spaces, and a dining and market area called the "Grand Galleria."

Student organizations
Students participate in a wide variety of service, pre-professional, religious, social, and other student organizations. Student publications at the college date to the first literary magazine, first published in 1889. The student newspaper, the Old Gold and Black, is published every other week, and the yearbook, The Bohemian, is published each spring.

Service learning
Wofford has a variety of student service organizations on campus, including the Bonner Scholars, Twin Towers, APO, and ONE.

Wofford was included on the 2010 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, published by the Corporation for National and Community Service. Washington Monthly compared 23 of 252 Top Liberal Arts Colleges contributions to the public good in three broad categories: Social Mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), Research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and PhDs), and Service (encouraging students to give something back to their country). In the magazine’s 2010 ratings Wofford finished 23rd among 252 Top Liberal Arts Colleges, and was number 1 in South Carolina). Newsweek identified Wofford as one of the most “service-minded” campuses in the country, ranking the college second in listings released in September 2010. Six recent Wofford graduates have been selected for the Teach For America Corps.

Student government
Student government rests in the Campus Union, with executive officers and an assembly elected by the student body. Students serve on various campus committees and represent the student body before various committees of the Board of Trustees.

Student conduct is governed by the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities, a document written by an Interim project in 1970-71. The code is enforced by a judicial commission consisting of elected and appointed members. An honor council enforces the student honor code in academic matters.

Fraternities and sororities
The college recognizes 14 chapters of national fraternities and sororities with 42 percent of men and 53 percent of women participating.

Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine Partnership
In 2010, Wofford College partnered with the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine- Carolina Campus, to provide VCOM students access to Wofford facilities and events. VCOM-CC is one of two VCOM campuses, the other is in Blacksburg, VA, and is partnered with Virginia Tech, and was opened in South Carolina to meet the demand for the shortage of primary care physicians and increased applicants.

Academics and medicine

 * C. Edward Coffey - vice president and chairman of the department of psychiatry, Henry Ford Health Care System, Detroit, Mich.
 * Gaines M. Foster - T. Harry Williams Professor of Southern History and dean, Louisiana State University College of Humanities and Sciences.
 * Michelle Phillips Hudspeth - Director of the Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Program at the Medical University of South Carolina.
 * Andrew Kang—Goodman Professor of Excellence and Director of the University of Tennessee-Memphis Special Center of Research in Rheumatoid Arthritis.
 * Frank Smith—Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine; holds the Marjorie J. Johnson Endowed Chair in pediatric hematology and oncology at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

Athletics and entertainment

 * David Bresenham - Television director and producer with the E! Network (Keeping up with the Kardashians and I’m Alive.)
 * Fisher DeBerry – Retired head football coach at the Air Force Academy (1984–2006) and 2011 inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame.
 * William McGirt – Professional golfer on the PGA Tour.
 * Craig Melvin - Weekend Anchor for WRC-TV News, the NBC affiliate in Washington, DC.
 * Danny Morrison – President of the Carolina Panthers NFL football team.
 * Wendi Nix – Anchor and reporter for ESPN.
 * Jerry Richardson – Owner and Founder of the NFL Carolina Panthers

Business

 * Michael S. Brown - CEO, Health Care Capital, Consolidated, Atlanta, GA
 * Harold Chandler - CEO, Univers Workplace Benefits, Hammonton, NJ
 * Catherine Sloss Crenshaw—president of Sloss Real Estate, Birmingham, AL

Politics, law and public service

 * Rodney O. Anderson - Major General, United States Army, Deputy Commander, XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg.
 * Michael J. Copps – Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission.
 * Henry Franklin Floyd – Judge of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina.
 * Clyde H. Hamilton – Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
 * Greg O'Dell - President and CEO, Washington Convention Center Authority, Washington, DC.
 * Costa M. Pleicones – Associate Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court since 2000.
 * Dennis W. Shedd – Judge on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Religion

 * Lyndon F. Harris - Executive Director, the Sacred City Project, New York, NY
 * William H. Willimon – Bishop of the United Methodist Church, North Alabama Conference

Education

 * William Preston Few – First president of Duke University and the fifth and last president of its predecessor, Trinity College.
 * James Kirkland – Second and longest-serving chancellor of Vanderbilt University.
 * James A. Knight – Psychiatrist, theologian, and medical ethicist; First dean of the Texas A&M School of Medicine.
 * Louis B. Wright-Shakespearean Scholar, Writer, Chief Librarian Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington (1899-1984)

Politics and law

 * Eight alumni have served in US House of Representatives, including Samuel Dibble the first graduate of Wofford College (Class of 1856).
 * Olin D. Johnston – Former United States Senator, South Carolina (1945–1965).
 * C. Bruce Littlejohn - Associate Justice South Carolina Supreme Court (1966–1984); Chief Justice (1984–1985).
 * Ellison D. Smith – Former United States Senator, South Carolina (1909–1945: 17th longest-serving senator in history).
 * John G. Stabler - Associate Justice South Carolina Supreme Court (1926–1935); Chief Justice (1935–1940).
 * Charles Albert Woods - Associate Justice South Carolina Supreme Court (1903–1913); Judge on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (1913–1925)

Religion

 * William Wallace Duncan (Class of 1858) - Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
 * Marion J. Hatchett – Liturgical scholar in the Episcopal Church who helped to shape the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.
 * Albert C. Outler – Theologian and philosopher.