Pathways and Furman's Next President

Furman's flagship advising program is a mix of real strengths and weaknesses. The next president will inherit both.

This May, President Elizabeth Davis announced that the 2026–27 academic year will be her last, and Furman has begun the search for her successor. Among the things her successor will inherit is the Pathways Program, the flagship advising effort Davis made a signature priority in the final years of her presidency, and the one class required of every Furman student. What follows is our analysis of where the program stands today and our suggestions for how it can be improved.

Over the past several months, we have published seven interviews with Furman’s students, alumni, faculty, and administration on the Pathways Program, Furman’s flagship advising initiative. Our goal was to publicize a variety of perspectives on the program in the hopes of examining the disparity between administration marketing and student and faculty feedback.

While the interviews uncovered a wide variety of opinions and perspectives, they also contained some consistent through lines: on the positive end, Pathways seems to have seriously improved freshman-year advising, a process which many alumni can attest was poor. The program also provides substantive career preparation. The example students most frequently lauded was an assignment where they reached out to a Furman alum working in a professional field that interested them. In Anna VanDoodewaard’s case, the combination of sound college advising and career field exploration were invaluable, leading to greater clarity in her college and post-graduate plans.

And yet, while we have learned many positive things about Pathways through these interviews, the concerns outlined in project introduction are still very top of mind. We understand, as Dr. Margaret Oakes and Ms. VanDoodewaard pointed out, that giving some academic credit for Pathways is necessary as an incentive for students, and is common practice in other endeavors which aren’t strictly academic, like internships.

At the same time, if Pathways is to receive academic credit, the rigor of its classes should more nearly resemble an internship rather than a summer orientation. This is sometimes—and maybe often—the case, but it is increasingly clear that the lapses of rigor have an outsized effect on student perception of the program.

No student we interviewed on or off the record took issue with Pathways’s career preparation. Most students highlighted it as something they really enjoyed. Yet many still had an overall negative impression of the program. Recent Furman graduate Vivian Claire described it as “babysitting.” Rising senior Nathan Johnson called the program a “safety net.” Former Pathways peer mentor Tyler Tewell described the experience as “being forced to sit in a class that spoon-feeds…buzzwords and asks for hollow feedback and reflection.”

This dynamic also addresses the question of time. Pathways does not, all things considered, take up much time. It is one session per week for four semesters. But, if the curriculum doesn’t provide worthwhile material sufficient for two years of class, then the program nonetheless is too long. Our concerns about academic rigor and the time Pathways takes are linked: at the end of the day, a program like this should last as long as it takes to teach the valuable parts of the curriculum, and not longer.

Students want to be challenged, and they know when their time is being wasted. That may not be true of every student at Furman, but we think it is true of most. For the students who don’t want to be challenged, Furman should challenge them anyway. Rigor and high expectations should be the norm, not the exception.

Students don’t hate Pathways simply because they don’t know what’s good for them. The students we interviewed are academically high achieving and very involved in Furman student life. They presented nuanced and mature reflections on their experience in the program. Yet they all—to varying degrees—considered chunks of the curriculum wastes of time.

Pathways is the one class required of all Furman students. It sets the tone for how students perceive the administration in particular and the university at large. It should therefore represent the best of the university, not the worst.

This year, Furman has demonstrated an awareness that not all is right with Pathways. They held focus groups and listening sessions with students and faculty, asking for feedback on the program. We laud these efforts, and encourage the university to listen to and act on thought-through criticism.

As we mentioned in our project introduction, Pathways reform could go in many different and legitimate directions. Therefore, in lieu of making specific recommendations, we wish to make one broad proposal: try to do less.

This is the list of Pathways program objectives listed at the top of the Pathways 101 syllabus:

1) Develop intellectual curiosity and academic competence

2) Establish and maintain meaningful interpersonal relationships

3) Develop one’s identity, purpose, and integrity

4) Establish and maintain personal health and wellness

5) Develop multicultural awareness and competence

6) Explore potential majors and academic directions, including study away, research, and internships

7) Explore career paths and identify ways to build career competencies

8) Develop career competencies, including professionalism

9) Learn about the components of leadership and models of social change

10) Engage in reflection on one’s own development

When one remembers that this class meets for an hour a week, it should not be surprising that Pathways falls short of its lofty goals. By trying to do everything at once, it ends up doing very little well.

Furman has long instilled intellectual curiosity and multicultural awareness in its students in the classroom and on study away trips. Furman students, like everyone, most often develop their identity, purpose, and integrity through the experiences they have outside of the classroom while living everyday life. Pathways’s architects should be willing to outsource student formation that other parts of the university are better equipped for, in order to focus on doing their part with excellence.

The departure of Elizabeth Davis and search for a new Furman president presents the university’s leadership and faculty with the opportunity to evaluate her legacy. While there is much to be proud of and grateful for, there are also things to be improved. We encourage Furman’s leadership to make Pathways better. The more substantive and useful the program, the more students will respect their university and be proud to be Paladins.