Wofford Holds 163rd Commencement

J. Harold Chandler, a 1971 Wofford College graduate and chairman, president and CEO of Spartanburg-based Milliken & Co., delivered the college’s Commencement address in the Benjamin Johnson Arena.

He and two others received honorary degrees and degrees were conferred to 365 graduates, who received a total of 385 degrees. Two teaching awards and other honors also were presented.

In addition to Chandler, honorary degrees were presented to South Carolina poet Nikky Finney and Spartanburg philanthropist Susan Phifer (Susu) Johnson.

The Roger Milliken Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Science was presented to Dr. Kara L. Bopp, associate professor and chair of the Department of Psychology, and the Philip Covington Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Humanities and Social Sciences went to Dr. Tracy J. Revels, professor of history.

The college also presented the prestigious Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award to graduating senior Robert Christopher Chase, a biology major, with a minor in business, from Charlotte, N.C., and Edward Thomas Russell, co-founder of Children’s Security Blanket, a Spartanburg nonprofit organization that provides assistance to families whose children are battling cancer.

The student recipient of the Mary Mildred Sullivan Award was senior Jessica Nena Meggs, a government and religion major from Greenville, S.C. The non-student recipient was Linda Powers Bilanchone, who also was recognized as a retiring instructor in communications studies at Wofford.

Geophrey Owen Darrow of Charlotte, N.C., was recognized as the honor graduate, receiving a perfect 4.0 GPA throughout his college career. He received a degree in English with a minor in government. He graduated summa cum laude.

Honorary Degrees

J. Harold Chandler
Chandler, a 1971 Wofford College graduate, is chairman, president and CEO of Spartanburg-based Milliken & Co. He was the featured speaker at the college’s 2017 Commencement Exercises.

Chandler served on the Wofford board from 1988 to 2000 and then again since 2004. He was vice chair from 2009 to 2011 and served as chair until his retirement from the board last year. The boardroom in the DuPre Administration Building was named for him at the time his term expired in June 2016.

A graduate of Belton-Honea Path High School in Belton, S.C., Chandler was an outstanding student-athlete at Wofford, leading the Terrier football team as quarterback for two seasons and to the NAIA National Championship game in 1970. He graduated summa cum laude in 1971 with a degree in economics. He was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa while at Wofford.

Chandler earned his MBA from the University of South Carolina and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s advanced management program. He has served in major management positions or as chief executive officer with regional and national banking, insurance and benefits administration organizations as well as leading numerous corporate boards of directors.

He was selected as Wofford’s Young Alumnus of the Year in 1983 and has led the Terrier Club and endowed athletics scholarship efforts for many years, helping to achieve more than $40 million in endowed athletics funds. He and his wife have generously supported numerous Wofford scholarship, renovation and building projects over more than 45 years of involvement with the college.

During his tenure on the board, Chandler oversaw significant reform of the college’s governance structure and served as an example and mentor to presidents emeriti Joab M. (Joe) Lesesne and Benjamin (Bernie) Dunlap, as well as overseeing the hiring and first three years of Samhat’s administration.

Nikky Finney
Finney was born by the sea in South Carolina and raised during the Civil Rights, Black Power and Black Arts Movements. She began reading and writing poetry as a teenager growing up in the spectacle and human theater of the Deep South. At Talladega College she began to autodidactically explore the great intersections between art, history, politics and culture. These same arenas of exploration are ongoing today in her writing, teaching and spirited belief in one-on-one activism. She is the author of four books of poetry, “On Wings Made of Gauze,” “RICE,” “The World is Round” and “Head Off & Split,” which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2011. She has written extensively for journals, magazines and other publications. For 21 years she taught creative writing at the University of Kentucky and now holds the John H. Bennett Jr. Chair in Creative Writing and Southern Letters at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. She travels extensively, never lecturing, always inviting and hoping for conversations that just might improve the human condition.

Susan Phifer (Susu) Johnson
A life trustee at Converse College, Johnson is a former member of Spartanburg City Council and has served on the boards of Brookgreen Gardens and Spoleto Festival USA. She is an active community advocate currently serving on the leadership board of Spartanburg Academic Movement (SAM). Most recently, she spearheaded the establishment of Meeting Street Academy-Spartanburg, an innovative school that aims to empower “young people from under-resourced neighborhoods to become confident, productive and principled members of society through excellence in academics.” She is the first woman to chair the board of the United Way of the Piedmont and the first woman to run a campaign for the organization. Johnson and her husband, George Dean Johnson, and their family began the Johnson Collection, which offers an extensive survey of artistic activity in the American South from the late 18th century to the present day. Masterworks from its holdings are made available for critical exhibitions and academic research, in the hopes of advancing interest in the dynamic role that the art of the South plays in the larger context of American art and to contribute to the canon of art historical literature. Works from the Johnson Collection will be among the first to be exhibited in Wofford’s new Rosalind Sallenger Richardson Center for the Arts.