National College Guides 

Of the more than 4,000 four-year colleges and universities in the United States, approximately 350 are selective in admission and attract a disproportionate share of the nation's best students.  Information about these institutions, including Wofford College, is highlighted in a number of commercially published college guides:

U.S. News & World Report - America's Best Colleges
The Princeton Review College Guide
The Fiske Guide to Colleges
The (Yale) Insider's Guide
Peterson's Colleges for Top Students
ISI's Choosing the Right College

These guides do contain useful statistical information and offer interesting and different perspectives from campus-based viewbooks and Web sites.  However, their attempt to "compare" or "rank" the colleges may confuse students and parents who are seeking to find their own "right college."

Wofford is pleased to be profiled in all of these guides.  We also are proud of some of the national distinctions we have earned in non-commercial settings, such as the important book Student Success in College and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE).  It also is gratifying that we have been able to achieve this level of top-tier quality while maintaining tuition and fees only slightly above the national average for independent liberal arts colleges.

                                           Student Success in College ^TM 

As a result of its participation in Project DEEP (Documenting Effective Educational Practices), Wofford is included in the resulting publication based on further research, recognized as one of 20 campuses that engage students.

"Most students, whether they were fourth-generation Wofford 'legacies' or the first in their family to go to college, told us that upon arriving they felt the college was a place where they would fit in and 'matter.'"

". . . students and faculty reported they develop meaningful relationships that extend well beyond the classroom, a 'tradition of putting the emphasis o the individual student (that) goes back 150 years.'"

". . . the faculty saw learning communities to be a vehicle to involve students more meaningfully in general education offerings."

"Building on successful interdisciplinary humanities courses and a well-received first-year learning community pilot, (Wofford) obtained a $200,000 Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) grant from the National Science Foundation . . . to take the innovative integrated learning community idea to scale."

"DEEP colleges and universities value international and study abroad experiences and infuse them throughout the curricula and the co-curriculum. Miami, Wofford, Gonzaga, and George Mason are among the ten universities with the highest proportions of students who study abroad."

Project DEEP (Documenting Effective Educational Practices) 

Project DEEP is a study conducted by the Center for Post Secondary Educational Research at Indiana University-Bloomington to determine why certain campuses score exceptionally well on the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). Wofford was among the 20 campuses chosen to participate in the first Project DEEP in 2002-2003. Other campuses include Evergreen State College, Macalester College, Sweet Briar College, the University of the South, and Wabash College.

In 2003, more than 185,000 first year and senior students on 649 campuses participated in NSSE. Data was collected to measure five standards: (1) the level of academic challenge; (2) active and collaborate learning; (3) student-faculty interaction; (4) enriching educational experiences; and (5) a supportive campus environment. Wofford scored in the top quartile of all the colleges and universities on these benchmarks, and was in the top 5 percent in "student faculty interaction" and "supportive campus environment" for first year students.

Wofford received a $250,000 grant from the Fullerton Foundation in the fall of 2005 to create an innovative, cross-disciplinary program of undergraduate student research. Combined with $100,000 provided by the college, the funds will be used to fund the Wofford College Community of Scholars over a three-year period. The undergraduate research fellows in the program will pursue their research during the summer, working under the supervision of faculty mentors engaged in parallel or related research. The projects will encompass all disciplines, including science, the humanities, the social sciences and the fine arts.

Four liberal arts colleges – Converse and Wofford in Spartanburg, the University of North Carolina at Asheville and Agnes Scott College in Georgia – jointly received a $25,000 planning grant from the Teagle Foundation in 2005 to explore methods for assessing institutional creativity and its impact on "learning outcomes." Wofford hosted representatives of the colleges in the fall of 2005 to hear from national consultants and to discuss further research.

Open Doors: Report on International Educational Exchange (2007)

Wofford College ranks in the top five in the country in the percentage of undergraduates receiving credit for studying abroad, according to Open Doors 2007, an annual report published by the New York-based Institute of International Education (IIE). Wofford has been among the top 10 nationally consistently over the past 10 years.

The President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll (2006)

Wofford College is among the list of two-year and four-year colleges and universities around the country to be named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for 2006.

The first-ever awards were presented Oct. 16, 2006, at the Campus Compact 20th Anniversary celebration in Chicago by the Corporation for National and Community Service, an independent federal agency tasked with fostering an ethic of volunteerism and service in America.

"Higher education is a powerful engine of civic engagement and is central to achieving the president’s vision of active citizens and connected communities.” - Stephen Goldsmith, chairman of the Corporation for National and Community Service

Historic and Beautiful Campus

Founded in 1854, Wofford is one of fewer than 200 existing American colleges founded before the Civil War, and one of an even smaller number of those institutions still operating on its original campus.

Wofford's 150-acre campus is home to Main Building and four original faculty homes that comprise the Wofford College Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The entire campus was designated the "Wofford College Arboretum" in November 2002 and Wofford is now a member of the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta. More than 5,000 trees have been planted on the Wofford campus since 1992 and 2,700 of those have been identified, cataloged and mapped for three self-guided tours.

Wofford’s restoration and renovation of Main Building’s Leonard Auditorium received a “Project of Distinction” Award in College Planning & Management magazine’s 2007 Education Design Showcase, and the magazine recognized the project’s designers, McMillan Smith & Partners Architects PLLC in Spartanburg, for “Outstanding Architecture and Design in Education.”  The project was included in the June 2007 issue of College Planning & Management’s Education Design Showcase.

The Leonard Auditorium renovation was part of an $8 million restoration/renovation of Main Building.  The complete interior upgrade, completed in early 2006, restored Leonard’s 19th century appearance in tandem with improving fire protection and other considerations in the building.  The project fully honored the college’s primary objective to recreate the original character of the auditorium.

Wofford also will receive national recognition in October 2007 at the 27th annual  Builder’s Choice Design & Planning Awards program for the senior housing village project.  There will be 50 winners chosen from 500 entries.