A 40-acre (16.2 ha) lake is a highlight of the 750-acre (304 ha) wooded campus. Furman Lake, Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina Paris Mountain State Park overlooks the lake and campus. Most buildings are of Georgian-style architecture. Many academic buildings and student residences stand around the lake, including the Bell Tower, which figures highly in school insignias and is a replica of the tower that once existed on the men's campus in downtown Greenville. Today, the campus is anchored by its newly expanded 128,000-square foot (12,000 m2) James B. Duke Library. Informally known as "The Country Club of the South," Furman was named one of the 362 most beautiful places in America by the American Society of Landscape Architects. The fall 1997 issue of Planning for Higher Education names Furman as a benchmark campus for its landscaping. The 1997 Princeton Review ranked Furman fifth in its list of beautiful campuses, based on student ratings of campus beauty. In 2011, Travel+Leisure listed Furman as one of the most beautiful college campuses in the United States. [14] Students are required to live on campus, except senior year when they may participate in a lottery for a chance to live off campus. James B. Duke Library at Furman University On the north side of the lake are the four Greenbelt housing cabins,[15] and the Cliffs Cottage, which is a "green" building built as a showcase home in conjunction with Southern Living magazine.[16] Most juniors and seniors live in North Village Apartments, located on the north side of the Cliffs Cottage. The remaining upperclassmen are either placed in dorm-style residence halls or enter a lottery to receive an apartment in The Vinings, an apartment complex next to campus owned by the university. There are two other residence complexes (called Lakeside and South Housing) which house freshmen and sophomores. The campus also includes an Asian Garden, the centerpiece of which is the Place of Peace, a Buddhist temple moved to the site from Japan and reconstructed by traditional carpenters. A replica of the cabin that Henry David Thoreau inhabited while writing On Walden Pond is located on the west side of the lake.[17]

All full-time students, except those who are married or living at home with their parents or guardians, are required to live on campus in university housing. Furman undergraduates can choose between south campus housing and lakeside housing. South Housing includes the Geer, Manly, Poteat, Blackwell and McGlothlin dorms. Lakeside Housing includes the Gambrell, Ramsey, Judson, Townes, McBee, Haynsworth, and Chiles dorm. All student housing has air-conditioning, closets, wireless Internet access, and washer-dryer usage. The North Village is an apartment complex that offers apartment-style living for upperclassmen. North Village apartments offer two or four bedrooms, living room, full kitchen, balcony, two vanity areas, two bathrooms and closet and storage space. Within each bedroom, a full-size bed, desk, desk chair and dresser/hutch is provided for each resident. In 2012, the annual costs for residing in the on-campus dormitories was $5,198 per student.

Furman competes in NCAA Division I athletics, and at the FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) level in football and is one of the smallest NCAA Division I schools in the nation. Furman fields 18 men's and women's teams, as well as 16 club sports and many intramural teams.[21] The university is a member of the Southern Conference. Furman is the only liberal arts college to be ranked in Sports Illustrated Top-100 America's Best Sports Colleges[22] and has 32 former student-athletes competing at the professional level - the most of any Southern Conference member school.[citation needed] The team nickname, the Paladins, was first used by a Greenville, South Carolina, sportswriter in the 1930s. For many years the name "Paladins" just referred to Furman's basketball team. Until 1961 the school's baseball teams were known as the "Hornets" and the football teams as the "Hurricanes". On Sept. 15, of that year, the student body voted to make "Paladins" the official nickname of all of the university's intercollegiate athletic teams.