Furman University to Hold Fall Convocation on September 3rd

Greenville’s Buck Welling, Jr. to Receive Honorary Doctorate

GREENVILLE, SC – August 26, 2009 – The 2009-10 school year at Furman University officially will get under way with an opening convocation Thursday, Sept. 3 at 10 a.m. in McAlister Auditorium.

 James B. Leavell, Herring Professor Emeritus of Asian Studies and History at Furman, will deliver the convocation address, “Furman—Engaged with Asia.” Furman president David E. Shi will preside.

The university will welcome the Class of 2013 and award an honorary degree to Irvine T. “Buck” Welling, Jr., chair and president of the charitable foundation Hollingsworth Funds, Inc.

 A founding partner of the Elliott Davis accounting firm, Welling helped the late Greenville textile machinery executive John D. Hollingsworth create Hollingsworth Funds.  Hollingsworth died in 2000, but the foundation that bears his name has donated millions of dollars to Furman, the YMCA and numerous other non-profit groups in the Upstate of South Carolina.

Also during convocation, five Furman Fellows will be announced. They are members of the senior class who’ve shown unique problem-solving skills and an ability to make a difference in the world and in the lives of others. Each fellow will receive a scholarship.

Leavell, who came to Furman in 1974 and retired in 2006, has B.A. and M.A. degrees from Baylor University and a doctorate from Duke University, where he studied East Asian history. He was named the 1989 Faculty Member of the Year by the Association of Furman Students and won the 1996 Alester G. Furman Jr. and Janie Earle Furman Meritorious Teaching Award. He became director of the South Carolina Center for Teaching about Asia in 2003.