One Student's Perspective on President Davis

While grateful for her hard work and dedication, many students feel somewhat indifferent to her departure.

Happy Independence Day!

The Furman Free Speech Alliance hopes all of you celebrated America’s 250th anniversary with as much fervor and excitement as we did! We live in a truly amazing country and we are particularly blessed by the First Amendment and the freedom of speech it protects.

---

---

Upcoming Webinar

Mark your calendars for the next FFSA webinar!

On Thursday, July 16, at 4:00pm EST, our very own Alex Hibbs will be interviewing Robert Shibley, a special counsel and former executive director of FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

The webinar will be hosted on our Substack platform, and subscribers will have the chance to ask questions and contribute to the discussion.

---

---

Welcoming Ellison White to the FFSA Team!

In the coming weeks, we will continue to cover the ongoing saga of the search for Furman’s next president. As part of that work, one of our goals is to help alumni and friends of Furman to understand what campus life is like today and what issues are animating students

With that goal in mind, we are pleased to announce that Ellison White has joined our team as an intern. Ellison is a junior Business & Politics and International Affairs major from Durham, North Carolina. On campus she is an intern for the Tocqueville Center for the Study of Democracy and Society, a member of Kappa Delta Sorority, and a Student Equipment Manager for the Furman Football team. We are grateful to have her on board and excited that she will be contributing to our website.

Below, you’ll find her first piece, in which she offers some reflections on how many Furman students feel about President Davis, her departure, and her legacy. If you enjoy it and want to read more from Ellison, subscribe today and share this piece with your friends and family!

---

---

President Davis Led from a Distance

After more than a decade as president, Elizabeth Davis has announced that she will be leaving Furman at the end of the upcoming academic year. While grateful for her hard work and dedication, many students feel somewhat indifferent to her departure, reflecting that few ever got to know President Davis or form a strong impression of her.

While many students saw President Davis at sporting events and campus-wide functions, few opportunities existed to know her beyond appearances. For most students, the clearest impression of Davis came through her campus-wide emails. Davis’s communication style reflected her broader approach to leadership: consistently polished and professional but so carefully calibrated that it rarely conveyed a distinctive personal voice. At a university that prides itself on close relationships, many students struggled to feel a genuine connection with the person leading the campus.

To a certain extent, this is understandable. Davis had to navigate the university through difficult periods, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and deal with the mounting political polarization of the past decade. In such circumstances, being cautious makes sense. However, it also comes with the downside of seeming impersonal and disconnected from campus.

The same can be said of the hallmark program of her tenure: The Furman Advantage. It was meant to help give Furman a distinct offering in an increasingly crowded higher education market, which is a genuinely difficult problem. But in practice, it never resonated with many students.

According to the university’s website, the Furman Advantage “lies in our engaged learning, reflection, belonging and mentoring.” However, many students use the phrase ironically, a campus-wide inside joke, to describe everything from DH cookies to parking tickets. In fact, the term has become so hollow that the Admissions Office now asks its tour guides to limit usage of the phrase when interacting with prospective students.

This is just one example, but it gets at a disconnect between the administration’s efforts and the reality on the ground at Furman that ran throughout the Davis era. Her administration consistently struggled to connect with students or to successfully market what makes Furman special to so many people.

As the daughter of two Furman alumni, I arrived my freshman year with an inherited understanding of what makes the university special. It is not a buzzword like “engaged learning, reflection, belonging and mentoring.” It’s professors pouring time and effort into their students’ lives, the Mall packed on the Friday before homecoming, and the friendships and close-knit culture that only form on a small residential campus.

As Furman moves into its third century, the committee should look for a different kind of leader. Ideally, the next president should be someone more dynamic, more personable, and who understands the uniqueness of Furman’s character. In addition to being an effective administrator, Furman needs someone who is eager to build relationships with students, communicate clearly, and be an active part of campus life. Furman’s greatest advantage has never been buzzwords or branding; it has always been its people. Furman’s next president should reflect that.