Degrees awarded to 671 students at Saturday’s virtual graduation

On Saturday, May 9, Furman University President Elizabeth Davis conferred degrees on 671 students virtually in a video to graduates.

A screenshot taken during the Emily Scott Robinson’s live Instagram show Saturday.

The degrees include 382 Bachelor of Arts, 237 Bachelor of Science, 19 Bachelor of Music and 11 Bachelor of Liberal Arts as well as 18 master’s degrees and four post-master’s education specialist degrees. Graduates represented 34 states and territories as well as two foreign countries.

The president emailed the Furman community just before 8 a.m. with a special message and a video featuring a message from her and from the senior class president, Jaylon Goodwin ’20, a biology major from Columbia, South Carolina, who also recently received the Furman Hall of Leaders Award for Excellence in Service and Leadership.

“You’ve faced and overcome many challenges – challenges none of us could have imagined just a few months ago,” President Davis told the class. “You learned and you grew along the way. You found your path, and you arrived at this special moment. Congratulations! We celebrate you today and look forward to seeing you at your commencement ceremony in the fall.”

The university is making plans for an in-person commencement ceremony in the fall. Details will be disclosed as soon as they are final.

Later that afternoon, more than 650 people tuned in to Furman’s Instagram page to listen to a special one-hour concert performed by acclaimed singer-songwriter Emily Scott Robinson ’09 from her home in Arizona.

The Furman community celebrated  by sharing messages of encouragement, celebration and congratulations on a special Senior Inspiration web page, using the #Furman2020 hashtag from public Instagram and Twitter social media account.

WYFF News 4 and FOX Carolina covered the virtual graduation, while the Greenville Journal wrote a story previewing Robinson’s concert.