Wofford founded 1854

• Phi Beta Kappa — There are only 280 chapters of this prestigious honor society on the 3,500 college campuses across the United States. Wofford received its charter in 1941.
• Wofford is one of 122 colleges and universities related to the United Methodist Church. Consistent with that tradition, the college welcomes faculty and students of all faiths, as well as those of no faith.
• Alumni Profile  —  Of 15,587 alumni,
  1,155 are presidents or owners of corporations or organizations;
  924 practice medicine, dentistry or other health-care professions;
  803 are attorneys or judges;
  725 are members of the clergy or serve in churches and related fields
• About 40 percent of graduates participate in loan programs, but their level of debt is among the lowest compared to peer institutions. The default rate for the last four years has remained below 1.0, and for 2007, it was 0.0.
• Forbes (www.forbes.com) ranked Wofford at number 58 among the 600 “America’s Best Colleges” in August 2010. It was the only campus in South Carolina among the top 90 colleges and universities.
• U.S. News & World Report (2011) compares Wofford to 266 liberal arts colleges nationwide (Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore) that emphasize undergraduate education and award at least half their degrees in the arts and sciences. Wofford is one of only 10 colleges from the South in the top quartile (top 66).
• U.S. News & World Report, “Great Schools, Great Prices” section (2011). Wofford was rated 29th among 40 selected national liberal arts colleges.
• Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine listed Wofford at number 39 among the nation's Best Values in Liberal Arts Colleges.
• Princeton Review, “America’s 100 Best Value Colleges” (as featured in USA Today, fall 2010.)
   
• Profiled in these additional selective college guides:
      Barron’s Best Buys in College Education
      Peterson's 440 Great Colleges for Top Students
      Choosing the Right College: The Whole Truth About America's Top Schools (ISI Guides)
      The Princeton Review’s The Best 371 Colleges
      The Fiske Guide to Colleges
      The (Yale) Insider’s Guide to the Colleges  

 

• The faculty to student ratio is 1:11. A majority of class sections (57 percent) enrolled fewer than 20 students.
• There are no graduate‐student teaching assistants at Wofford; all sections are taught by faculty members or qualified adjuncts.
• Elizabeth Cox, John C. Cobb Professor in the Humanities, was inducted into the prestigious Fellowship of Southern Writers in 2010.
• Dr. Angela Shiflet is the 2009 Carnegie/CASE South Carolina Professor of the Year. She is the Larry Hearn McCalla Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Wofford and chair of the department. 
• Dr. Philip Swicegood (R. Michael James Professor of Finance) spent the spring 2010 semester at the University of Split in Croatia as a U.S. Fulbright Fellow. Swicegood has played a key role in the development of a seminar on real-world investment management for majors in finance.
• Dr. Byron McCane, Outler Professor and Chair of the Religion Department, is a frequent commentator on the National Geographic Channel, the Discovery Channel and the History Channel.
• Dr. Ellen Goldey, Kenan Professor of Biology and chair of the department, was elected a 2008-2009 SENCER Leadership Fellow by the National Fellowship Board of the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement. She also was named a Teagle Foundation scholar.
• Dr. Ana Maria Wiseman, dean of international programs, received the IES Abroad Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010.

 

• 90 percent of the first-year students returned for their sophomore year.
• 78 percent graduate within four years.
• 82 percent graduate in six years. 
• More than 30 members of each graduating class attend medical school or the equivalent. Of those meeting Wofford’s minimum standards for recommendation (3.2 GPA, 25 MCAT score), 80 percent are accepted for admission.
• 38 recent Wofford graduates entered law school in the fall of 2009.
• Wofford consistently scores in the top 10 percent of all five indices of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). As a result of NSSE’s Project DEEP (Documenting Effective Educational Practices) study, Wofford was featured as one of 20 benchmark campuses for engaged learning in Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter (American Association for Higher Education). A second edition of the text is in progress, highlighting Wofford’s continued excellence in outcomes assessment.  Visit Wofford's NSSE page for more information. 
• Community of Scholars — This innovative program is designed to foster collegiality through a 10-week summer research program and to create cross-disciplinary dialogue among students and faculty.
• Jay Carlson ‘10 was honored in February 2010 by the South Carolina Society of Philosophy as the author of the state’s outstanding undergraduate research paper in philosophy. He was the fourth Wofford student in the past six years to win the award.
• Wofford’s student team from the department of accounting and finance was one of four finalists in the inaugural Southern Classic Investment Challenge in Atlanta in February 2010.
• Regina Fuller, Wofford's Presidential International Scholar in 2009-2010, won a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship for study in Ghana.
• Senior Tramaine Brown is a member of USA Today’s All-USA College Academic Second Team. A past Jefferson Award winner for Public Service, he spent the fall 2010 term as a White House intern in the Office of Scheduling and Advance, where he coordinated the planning and preparation for Presidential events around the country and world.
• Pre-medical junior Joseph McAbee was the only undergraduate to be named a Pauletta and Denzel Washington Family Scholar in Neuroscience Award in the summer of 2010. He worked as a member of the world-renowned research team in the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

 

• Wofford was included on 2009 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, published by the Corporation for National and Community Service. Of the 635 colleges on the Honor roll, Wofford was one of only 115 to receive “distinction” for the second consecutive year.
• Five recent Wofford graduates have been selected for the Teach For America Corps. Keshia Boyd ’10 is assigned to Memphis, Tenn., and Emily Johnson ’10 is teaching in the Greater New Orleans area.
• Washington Monthly compared 23 of 252 Top Liberal Arts Colleges contributions to the public good in three broad categories: Social Mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), Research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and PhDs), and Service (encouraging students to give something back to their country). In the magazine’s 2010 ratings Wofford finished 23rd among 252 Top Liberal Arts Colleges, number 1 in South Carolina).
• Newsweek identified Wofford as one of the most “service-minded” campuses in the country, ranking the college second among the “best 25 schools for do-gooders” in listings released in September 2010.
• ONE is a global advocacy and campaigning organization dedicated to fighting extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. In 2008, Wofford was judged the outstanding participant in the national ONE Campus Challenge, just ahead of the University of Michigan and the University of Florida. Tomas Moreno has been recognized nationally for his service in this program.
• Tramaine Brown ’11 was the winner of a 2008 Jefferson Award for Public Service (WYFF-TV) for his work in organizing the Cleveland Elementary School Math Academy.
• Spartanburg County Public Library partners with Wofford student-athletes in the “Terrier Tales” program designed to reward and encourage reading among elementary school students. The program was nominated for a South Carolina Literacy Champion Award.

 

 

 

 

• NCAA Graduation Success Rate Scores (2009)- Following the release of GSR data, the Chronicle of Higher Education scored Wofford among the top 11 Division I programs in the country. 10 of 13 varsity teams had a GSR score of 100, the highest available, and all Wofford teams exceeded the national average of 79 percent.
  The Terriers compete successfully in the Southern Conference, NCAA Division I, and the football team made the FCS playoffs in three of the last six years.
• For the past 15 years, the Carolina Panthers have made their summer training camp home at Wofford, resulting in athletic facilities built to NFL standards, available for the use of all.
• Wofford College head football coach Mike Ayers was featured as one of “America’s Best Leaders” in a two-page profile in the November 2009 issue of U.S. News & World Report.
• Wofford's men’s soccer team secured the 2009 Southern Conference regular season championship with a dramatic 4-3 victory at Furman on Nov. 3.
• Men’s basketball- Winners of the 2010 Southern Conference regular season and tournament championships, with a berth in the NCAA Tournament. Mike Young, SoCon Coach of the Year, and Noah Dahlman ‘11, SoCon Player of the Year.