Wofford College

Last summer, Katie Stewart '26 created an experiment to investigate how rising temperatures and invasive species impact native crayfish abundance and behavior in Lawson's Fork Creek in Spartanburg County. In February, she took her findings to the South Carolina American Fisheries Society Annual Conference in Beaufort and won the award for best poster presentation. She says her Wofford mentors have helped her find a passion for research.

Stan Zagrodnik '26 won the $5,000 first prize in the 2026 Terrier Startup Challenge with his mobile sauna and cold plunge business. In this annual competition, students pitch buisness ideas to a panel of alumni judges and network with local entrepreneurs.

Joe Khalil '26, an international affairs and Spanish double major from Boiling Springs, South Carolina, will take on a nonstop 50-mile run to raise funds for Miracle Hill Ministries and the Spartanburg Soup Kitchen on April 18. He and other Wofford students and staff have planned this effort since the beginning of the 2025-26 academic year.

Each year, Wofford's president chooses a student with "exceptional potential to benefit humankind as evidenced by a demonstrated passion for service learning combined with a globally minded intellectual curiosity" as the Presidential International Scholar. The scholarship funds independent research in nontraditional locations around the world. As the 2026-27 Presidential International Scholar, Kyia Karvelas will travel across the globe to create an ethnographic film that explores how representations of gender norms in film and on social media differ from the lived reality of women in Nepal, Turkey and Africa.

Chrisler White '28 was selected for the Douglass-O'Connell Global Internship in Dublin. This program recieves over 500 applicants each year, and White was one of 14 students accepted nationwide.

Arvin Radfar '29 and Molly McMahon '26 joined over 30 members of the Wofford community in volunteering at the South Carolina High School Ethics Bowl, hosted at Wofford College.

More than 30 international travel opportunities were available to Wofford students during the 2026 January Interim, including faculty-led programs and experiences offered through study abroad partners. Here are five snapshots from around the globe during Interim.

"The Garden We Grow," an exhbiition by Wofford's 2026 Whetsell Fellow Lyrical Dream Gist, is on display through Feb. 22 in the Richardson Family Art Gallery, Rosalind Sallenger Richardson Center for the Arts. There will be an artist talk and reception for the exhibition at 5 p.m. on Feb. 12 in the Richardson Family Art Gallery. The Whetsell Fellowship provides yearly funding for supplies and instruction to support a student artist in creating an exhibition with the support of a faculty mentor.

Getty Page '28 and Jacob Raider '28 each earned a $169,000 U.S. Army Cadet Command scholarship to pay for their remaining two years at Wofford.

Wofford College Provost Dr. Timothy Schmitz has announced Dean's List students for the fall 2025 semester.

Students in Dr. Stephanie Holt's Build an Affordable House course help build a home for a Spartanburg family during January Interim

Wofford's Pulp Theatre opened "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] [again]", directed by Jack Tope '26, on Jan. 22. Pulp Theatre challenges students to create a complete theatre production in less than a month as part of Wofford's January Interim, which offers distinctive, short-term experiential courses.

Wofford College Provost Dr. Timothy Schmitz has announced Dean's List students for the fall 2025 semester.

Jenna Huser '29 and Amelia Jones '29 have turned dinner in Burwell Dining Hall into an event. As marketing and social media interns for AVI Foodsystems, they organized hit events like TikTok Night and "Stranger Things" Dinner during fall semester, and have exciting plans for spring.

Margeaux Stapleton '26 is researching how cultural practices and traditions around birth impact outcomes for preterm babies and special needs children across three continents.

Chaplain Fellows Mariam Ali '28, Jose Ruiz Torres '26 and Darcy Phillips '27 and Geneva Kowbeidu '26, Wofford's Campus Union president, are still processing their experience from August in Chicago at the Interfaith Leadership Summit 2025. Part of Wofford's Interfaith Young Adults student group, these students are hoping to incorporate what they learned at the largest American interfaith gathering of college students and educators to inspire interreligious education on campus.

Studio Smoothie, a smoothie shop founded by Caris Mitchell '27, is now open Mondays and Wednesdays from 7:30-10:30 a.m. in the Galleria in the Michael S. Brown Village Center. Studio Smoothie is an official limited liability company.

Joslyn Taylor '27 used to scroll TikTok for hours watching "day in the life" videos of students studying abroad. Now she's sharing her own as an IES Abroad correspondent in Barcelona, Spain. Taylor, a sociology and anthropology major and government minor from Summerville, South Carolina, was chosen from a pool of 162 applicants to blog about her semester overseas for a national audience.

Using zebrafish as a model organism, two Wofford students spent the summer studying a little-understood gene called Tango6 and the role it plays in embryonic development.

Devin Ruppe '26 spent the summer at Emory University in Atlanta, where he's conducting research on a protein that could be used to treat triple negative breast cancer, the same aggressive disease that took his grandmother's life at the age of 45.

Guided by Abigail Dillard, assistant professor of theatre, five students spent the summer as dramaturgs - analyzing texts, poring over journals and mapping Edwardian England - to inform their all-student production of "The Drowning Girls."

Nate Cole '27 placed second nationally at the National Association of Teachers of Singing auditions held at Temple University in June. He was one of only 15 students to reach the semifinals in his category (classical; lower division; tenor, baritone and bass).

Wofford College awarded 452 Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts degrees to graduates during the college's 171st Commencement exercises.

Wofford College provost Dr. Timothy Schmitz has announced Dean's List students for the spring 2025 semester.

Wofford College awarded 452 baccalaureate degrees during the 171st Commencement Exercises on Sunday, May 18. Honor Graduates, Sullivan Award winners and graduates who were commissioned into the U.S. Army were also recgonized during the ceremony.

Wofford College celebrated student achievement at its annual Honors Convocation on May 16, presenting awards to dozens of students as well as several faculty and staff.

Jenna Hollis '26 and Tianna Kidd '25 are helping the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning further its mission of promoting effective and innovative teaching practices that engage and cultivate student learning as student fellows.

The winners and second-place finishers for the Helmus Award in Poetry and the Journal Award in Fiction were announced by the Department of English.

Wofford's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa welcomed 39 members into the nation's oldest academic honor society during an induction ceremony at Leonard Auditorium on May 1.

Three Wofford students joined Dr. Dawn McQuiston, professor of psychology and director of the South Carolina Innocence Initiative, to attend the Innocence Network Conference held April 3-5 in Seattle. The attendees were Sydney Holland '25, Teagan McIntosh '27 and Nick Ross '26.