Office for Civil Rights, Compliance and Community Initiatives

Dr. Lewis P. Jones ’38 delivered an address entitled “The Controversies and Difficulties of the Liberal Arts Colleges” to Wofford alumni on August 1, 1963. Later published in the South Carolina Methodist Advocate, Dr. Jones’ lecture challenged its audience to wrestle with a liberal arts college’s two important, mutually conflicting missions.

A liberal arts college must be conservative by “transmit[ting] to each new generation…the accepted judgments and values of our civilization and society;” however, it must also be liberal by embracing its “contradictory duty of constantly examining and re-evaluating that heritage” to “add something to this heritage during each generation.” A liberal arts college “must carry along the heritage and traditions of the past, and thereby serve society as its memory and conscience” while simultaneously it “must also be building anew, and must serve society as imagination serves the man” because neither “the present, or the past, constitutes perfection in human aspirations.”

The Office for Civil Rights, Compliance and Community Initiatives draws inspiration from Dr. Jones’ insight into a liberal arts college’s purpose. As its mission statement establishes, Wofford aspires to “[prepare] its students for extraordinary and positive contributions to a global society.” This can only occur in an environment that respects and protects Wofford faculty, staff and students’ freedom of inquiry and right to a learning and working environment free of discriminatory harassment. Global engagement cannot take place in ivory tower isolation. Therefore, Wofford seeks to establish partnerships that encourage the campus to engage with Spartanburg, and that invite the Spartanburg community to enjoy the college’s cultural and educational offerings.

The Office for Civil Rights, Compliance and Community Initiatives proposes to advance these institutional imperatives.