Bryan Betts

When Jackson, a former presidential candidate and prominent civil rights activist once regarded as the successor to Martin Luther King Jr., graduated from Greenville’s Sterling High School in 1959, Furman’s policy of racial segregation prevented him from attending his hometown university, leading him to enroll instead at the University of Illinois.

It’s a question that seems simple — what should be the role of Furman’s president? — but the answers given at last month’s Presidential Search Committee’s Listening Sessions were anything but.

The discussions were wide-ranging, the opinions passionate and diverse, but if any consensus emerged out of the Presidential Search Committee’s listening sessions last week, it was that students, faculty, and staff admire Interim President Carl Kohrt and are looking for a candidate with similar qualities to lead a university that they say has lost its way during the past few years.

In the wake of student reports about mold in Lakeside Housing, Facilities Services and Housing and Residence Life said in an interview with The Paladin that they are aware of a “mold-like substance” in buildings on campus but that they did not view the substance as a cause for concern, except in cases where the problem was caused by water leakage.

Later this month, the Greenville Health System will designate Furman their “primary undergraduate institution” as a part of a new agreement that the administration says will provide Furman with additional resources and enable the university to consider new joint-programs with the hospital.

Once a week, about six students gather in the Trone Center’s student media suite and sit around a conference table for upwards of six hours, talking and laughing, at times locked in visibly tense exchanges but quite evidently enjoying themselves. It may not look like much to the uninitiated passerby, but for members of the Tabletop Gaming Club, the game of Dungeons and Dragons they’re playing goes past appearances — it’s an immersive role-playing experience that places them in league against mythical monsters in fantastic imaginative worlds.

The 16-member Presidential Search Committee charged with finding Furman’s next leader met face to face for the first time last week, moving forward with a search process that committee members say could identify a new president by the next academic year.

President Rod Smolla surprised the Furman community in May when he announced that he was stepping down the following month, ending a rocky tenure that — at three years — stands as the shortest in Furman’s 187-year history.

Most visitors to McAlister Auditorium get to see the building’s Georgian brick exterior, its stately chandelier-lit vestibule watched over by busts of Furman presidents past, and the auditorium itself, with its neat rows of white-backed, green-cushioned chairs facing the elegant undulating curtain of the stage.

The baseball team reveals their struggles to find the perfect walkout song.