Summer Scholars courses
Ready to be challenged? Whether you're interested in graphic design or participating in a mock trial, Summer Scholars offers you the opportunity to discover what it's like to study at Furman.
Each session, our students have the ability to choose a course from five options. To pick your course, simply rank your top two choices in the application, and we'll place you in a class. We assign our students to classes based on academic records and space availability. So be sure to apply early to land your desired course.
Our classes are held Monday through Friday for approximately five hours each day. Some courses, such as the mock trial, require evening meetings and outside assignments. Our Summer Scholar counselors will accompany students to class to help them with assignments as needed. Keep in mind that some courses require a recommendation from a scholar in a particular field.
Choose the course that appeals to you:
Session one: July 7-13
 Graphic Design: Advertising Design & Brand Identity
This course is an introduction to the organizational and creative aspects of advertising design relating to brand identity. The class will utilize graphic design to develop advertising solutions and study ways that color, typography and images play into the design of a 2 and 3-D product line that motivates consumers. The course will include lectures, projects, critiques, discussions, demonstrations, readings, presentations, and a field trip to a local ad agency. Software: Adobe Creative Suite 2; Hardware: Apple iMac G4, Flatbed scanner and color laser printer.
This program will be directed by Ross McClain, Assistant Professor of Art, who has been a member of the Furman faculty since the fall of 1999. Previously, he served as a faculty member at the University of Iowa and the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities. Ross also has five years of experience in commercial advertising and graphic design.
Leadership Quest
Leadership Quest is a fun-filled, action-packed program for high school students who wish to learn, experience, and model effective group behavior. Through discussions, demonstrations, games, simulations, and exercises, you'll learn about various leadership styles and be able to identify your own style. You'll learn to differentiate among the various individual roles of group members, and you'll understand the important elements of group problem solving. You'll be able to compare and contrast the various results of decision making by consensus building and to demonstrate the knowledge and benefits of trust building in small groups by using such skills as self disclosure and risk taking. You'll learn the importance of cooperation in small groups, and you'll find out how to provide motivation, feedback, and delegation.
Kim Keefer, Director of the Shucker Leadership Institute at Furman, will lead this program. She coordinates a comprehensive four-year leadership development program for Furman students and manages all operations for Furman's adventure challenge ropes course.
Live Well
Are you interested in nutrition, health, and fitness? Are you baffled by food labels, exercise gizmos, or contradicting media reports on diet and exercise? Learn how to decipher myth from reality by learning the basics of nutrition and exercise science. Develop an efficient and effective exercise program to meet your goals. Participate in group weight training, indoor cycling, and yoga classes. Become a food label whiz in a supermarket scavenger hunt. View the film "SuperSize Me" and discuss factors contributing to the current rise in obesity. Tour the Molnar Human Performance Laboratory, home to the Furman Institute for Running and Scientific Training (FIRST) that has been featured in Runner's World VO2 max treadmill testing to assess cardiorespiratory fitness or underwater weighing to assess body fat percentage. Visit a local farm to pick fresh fruits and vegetables, and help prepare a healthy meal with your classmates.
Kelly Frazier, M.A., is a lecturer and wellness program coordinator in the Department of Health Sciences. She is a certified Health and Fitness Specialist by the American College of Sports Medicine, and coordinates the Furman Group Exercise Program. Kelly frequently lectures on a variety of wellness topics in the Upstate, and recently authored the South Carolina Shrinkdown Healthy Living Guide that was distributed throughout the state.
Marketing and Business: Fantastic Firms and the Business Fundamentals That Make Them Great - This course is full. We are no longer taking registrations.
This course will introduce you to fundamental business concepts and practices that are essential for success in the global marketplace. We will examine these fundamentals through the lens of five firms, all of which have a strong presence in the Upstate South Carolina area. The firms are Apple, BMW, Michelin, REI and Starbucks. Areas to be addressed include brand strategy, business ethics, consumer behavior, globalization, manufacturing and production, market segmentation, product innovation, retailing, supply chain, and sustainability. For each firm we will examine the critical market factors and business practices that enable the organization to prosper in a dynamic, competitive environment. The class will include field trips to production facilities, retail environments, and presentations by company managers.
This course will be taught by Dr. Robert L. Underwood, Associate Professor of Marketing in the Department of Business and Accounting. Dr. Underwood has over 20 years of experience teaching and researching in the areas of consumer behavior, integrated marketing communication, international marketing, and strategic marketing management.
Sustainable Living
Furman University and the surrounding communities provide a rich learning laboratory for sustainable living. And living sustainably is becoming much more important in this age of constrained resources. The content of this course will include "how to grow food," "how to select food to sustain your life," "how to make energy from the sun," and "how to build a sustainable home." Class time will be split between lecture/discussion and field trips to nearby sustainable farms and farmer's markets, renewable energy installations, and "green" homes.
Theatre: Acting!
Who doesn't love William Shakespeare? Are you among the countless actors inspired by these great works? Do you want to move beyond words on a page and bring the Bard's work to life? Whether you have been in dozens of Shakespeare plays, or are just getting started, this course is the place for you. Take a week and really explore what it means to perform Shakespeare's texts through a holistic approach to actor training. Active and hands-on, students in this course will collaborate to build acting skills in voice, movement, and text analysis. Tell the stories, speak the speeches, and bring Shakespeare's words to the stage!
Maegan Azar, the Acting and Directing Professor at Furman, received her MFA in Acting Pedagogy from University of Alabama. Her passion for the actor's craft has led her around the country as an actor, director, and educator of theatre. Select Shakespeare Credits include: The Warehouse Theatre's Merchant of Venice (Portia), California Theatre Center's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Titania), University of Alabama's Two Gentleman of Verona (Julia) and All's Well That Ends Well (Helen), and The Rude Mechanical's Much Ado About Nothing (Beatrice).
Top Mock - This course requires a separate application. See course description for details.
Top Mock is an exclusive summer program for the best 12 high school mockers in the US. It is designed to polish the skills of the nation's best mockers by teaching them advanced skills in evidence, preparation of direct and cross examinations, and acting skills for witnesses. The program will focus on both the substantive aspects of preparing a case as well as presentation skills. During the week, students will conduct two trials in local courthouses. The coaches of Furman University's award-winning mock trial program (including our professional acting coach) will serve as professors for this intensive week of training and will be ably assisted by the students on the mock trial team. Presentations during the week will be made by some of Furman's most decorated mock trial participants who are now practicing attorneys.
Unlike the other Summer Scholars programs, Top Mock applicants must complete a separate application and submit a DVD of your trial work, two letters of recommendation and complete an interview. If you have questions about the application or the Top Mock course, please contact Dr. Glen Halva-Neubauer at glen.halva-neubauer@furman.edu.
Session two: July 14-20
Mock Trial
Thinking of a career in law? Curious about the American judicial system, courtroom procedures, and persuasive speaking skills? If the answer is yes, then this Summer Scholars class is for you!
The course introduces students to trial advocacy techniques and applies them to the hypothetical civil case, Allen v. Neptune Underwater Diving Expeditions. On April 21, 2011, the decedent (Lee Allen) and the decedent's spouse (Andy Allen) signed up for a seven-day scuba diving trip with the defendant (Neptune Underwater Expeditions). Thehighlight of the trip was to be three dives toThe Hepburn, a shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean. On July 7, 2011, Lee Allen, eight other Neptune customers, and two Neptune employees dove toThe Hepburnwreck. Lee Allen became separated from the group and never surfaced. Lee Allen's body was never recovered.
As Lee Allen's surviving spouse, Andy Allen, has brought a wrongful death suit against Neptune. Specifically, Andy Allen alleges that Neptune acted with reckless disregard for Lee Allen's safety and that this recklessness was a direct and proximate cause of Lee Allen's death. Neptune denies responsibility for Lee Allen's death and has raised a number of defenses.
Using the Allen case, the staff will teach participants proper courtroom etiquette, direct and cross examination tactics, the structure of opening statements and closing arguments, Federal Rules of Evidence, and other matters related to trial advocacy in a civil matter. Students will be divided into plaintiff and defense trial teams; at the end of the week, the case will be tried in the Greenville federal courthouse. After classroom instruction, students will be responsible for developing case themes, preparing direct and cross-examination questions for witnesses, and drafting opening statements and closing arguments.
Professors for the week will include the coaches of Furman's award-winning mock trial team, who are practicing attorneys. Students from Furman's mock trial program as well as Glen Halva-Neubauer, Dana Professor of Political Science, who founded the university's mock trial program in 1995, will assist the coaches. Dr. Halva-Neubauer currently serves as the President of the American Mock Trial Association, the sanctioning organization for undergraduate mock trial in the US.
Pre-Health: What is it like to practice medicine in the 21st century?
This course will give students the opportunity to learn what it takes to be a health care provider. Topics will include how to start preparing now for a health career, what to expect in health professional school, and a comparison of health careers available. Students will hear from a variety of healthcare professionals about the real issues they face in their careers.
In order to learn about the close interaction of the healthcare professions in the real world, students will work through a case study of diagnosing and treating a patient from start to finish. Students will participate in hands-on activities and lab experiments as they learn about the different facets of healthcare. This course may also include tours of local hospitals and healthcare facilities.
This course will be directed by Dr. John Banisaukas, the Health Professions Advisor at Furman University, and Susan Ybarra, the Health Experience and Internship Coordinator at Furman University.
Protest!
This course will look at protest and dissent as human activities. Subjects will be explored from a rhetorical perspective, considering the forms and functions of protest discourse and the responses to it. Our efforts will be focused on several important protest movements in the 20th-century U.S. history, including the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Movement, the Environmental Movement, the Farm Labor Movement, and others. Students will read key rhetorical documents, learn the
theories of protest and reform, study documentary histories, and engage in criticism of protesters and their opponents. The course will include at least one afternoon field trip to meet with Greenville area protesters.
This course will be taught by Dr. Sean O'Rourke, Professor of Communication Studies at Furman University.
Theatre: Remember me in LIGHT!
Introduction to the basic materials, processes, and procedures of standard theatrical lighting practice. Practical hands on experience in designing, hanging, and focusing theatrical lights. Exercises and experiments with various types of lighting instruments - including 21 state-of-the-art moving lights, special effects, and automated lighting. A culminating project where the students, working in smaller design teams, will design lights to illustrate a piece of classical music.
A typical day will involve a morning and an afternoon session. All work will take place in The Playhouse theatre, and a possible "field trip" to McAlister Auditorium to see larger scale proscenium lighting and follow spots. There will be a healthy mixture of more traditional "lectures" and actual work on a lighting crew - handling and manipulating the materials in experiments and exercises designed to give the student greater confidence and competence in using light as an artistic medium in the theatre.
Directing this program will be Rhett Bryson, professor of theatre arts at Furman and scenic and lighting designer for the Furman Theatre. Rhett has professional theatre experience at the Asolo Theatre Festival in Sarasota, FL. A master electrician will be named later.
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