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(04/27/11 6:45pm)
I would like to begin this article by thanking Mercer for ruining my excitement about the graduation ceremony. Yes, thank you. To avoid singling out certain individuals I will direct my article, simply, to Mercer.
Judging from the multiple conversations and Facebook statuses, I’m sure seniors can agree with me that Mercer is wrong for limiting us to only five tickets for graduation. Ever since the distribution of tickets I have seen at least five Facebook statuses from different students asking—and even begging—for extra tickets.
Is it space, Mercer? You can fix that issue. How hard can it be to rent the Macon Coliseum so that there will be no worries about seating? I don’t care whether I graduate on or off campus; hell, I graduated high school at the Gwinnett Civic Center. It’s not a big deal. My family doesn’t care about seeing the campus either; I have been here four years and they have seen enough of it.
Is it a money issue, Mercer? Does it cost too much to rent the Macon Coliseum for a day? If the school can spend money on pointless programs such as MercerMobile (which we saw was a complete fail, among other things), then why can’t there be an initiative for a better or larger venue for the graduation ceremony?
This five-ticket thing is ridiculous. I don’t think Mercer, the school I have attended for four years and for which I will be in debt, doesn’t care that I have to tell family members that have been influential figures in my college career that they cannot come because I am only allotted so many tickets.
For me college graduation is far more important than high school, and you’re telling me that my family traveling to Georgia from New Jersey can come sit in the Medical School auditorium and watch me graduate on a screen? That’s insulting!
What about those who have more than five people in their immediate family? Surprise, Mercer, I actually have two parents and more than one sibling! Shocking, right? I can’t imagine how those with more than two or three siblings are handling this ticket situation.
It seems as if Mercer cares more about their own interests rather than the interests of the students who pay tuition to go here. I promise I’m not the first or the last to complain about Mercer rationing students five tickets as if our families (outside the immediate family) don’t care about our achievements.
At some point shouldn’t you listen, Mercer? This isn’t another complaint — take into account how annoying it is to only have five tickets for my college graduation as opposed to my high school graduation, for which I was given 20.
May 14 is a special day for not only students, but also our families, relatives, friends, mentors and others who have been supportive during out time here at Mercer. I’m not saying students should be given 20 or 30 tickets, but would five more really hurt? As much as tuition costs for four years at this university, I should be able to have at least 10 tickets!
Comments on this opinion should be sent to editor@mercercluster.com
(04/26/11 12:47pm)
The Macon-Bibb County Urban Development Authority (UDA) recently hired Alex Morrison, former Mercer student and Cluster editor, as the new Executive Director.
Morrison, chosen out of 55 applicants during a yearlong search, will begin the position on May 2.
The authority considered merging the position with NewTown Macon, the city’s Economic Community Development Department and the Middle Georgia Regional Commission while searching for potential candidates, but decided keep the position and hire Morrison.
The UDA board ratified the vote and officially hired him on March 31.
Morrison said he has no fear or hesitation about the job. “I’m very excited to start work over there,” he said.
Morrison graduated from Mercer in 2007 with a degree in journalism and philosophy. While at Mercer, he was Editor in Chief for the Cluster for two years and one of the four students that developed the original College Hill Corridor plan.
After graduating from Mercer, Morrison attended the University of Georgia, where he then received his Master’s in Public Administration.
Even after living in Athens for two years, he has not been a stranger to the area — one week after graduating, he moved back to Macon.
Morrison was hired and began his position as the Business and Economic Specialist for the City of Macon, as well as taking on the position of Main Street Program Manager when he moved back.
He currently assists with development projects and coordinates the Main Street program, a four-point approach to downtown development.
He will be leaving this position to serve as the UDA director.
The UDA is a constitutionally created authority that is in charge of issuing bonds and pursuing development projects in the urban area.
As director, Morrison will manage day-to-day affairs and promote development projects that focus on economic growth, and preservation and rejuvenation of historic buildings.
He will also focus on recruiting new businesses to downtown, increasing residential living and buying and redeveloping properties.
“We’re really excited to take this step and make it happen downtown in a creative and new way,” he said.
Morrison said he is ready with ideas, and sees this as a great opportunity to get things off the ground for continuing development in the downtown area.
He wants to get community input on accelerating development downtown.
“One of the things we’re looking at is coming up with a master plan for Macon,” he said. “Something similar to the College Hill Corridor”.
Morrison will replace longtime UDA director Sid Cherry. Cherry has held the position for 34 years and announced his retirement over a year ago. He agreed to stay until a new director was found.
(04/13/11 9:37pm)
On April 5, Mercer University was one of seven stops during a Cobb County community group’s 2011 College Tour for middle and high school students.
STING, Inc., a nonprofit organization in conjunction with “We Thrive on the Drive”, led students from Pebblebrook High School in Mableton, Chapel Hill High School in Douglasville, Hiram High School in Hiram, and McEachern High School in Powder Springs, on a tour of Georgia colleges during their spring break.
The tour, a first for the organization, was possible through donations from sponsors and a car wash organized by the students.
The schools were chosen to reflect different colleges and what they offer.
“We decided to find a mixture of leading private, public, HBCU’s and two-year colleges,” Geneva Vanderhorst, creator and Executive Director of STING, Inc., said.
Other colleges in the tour included Savannah State University, Georgia Southern University, Fort Valley State University, Gordon College, Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse and Spelman College.
During their visit at Mercer, the students toured the campus and ate lunch in the cafeteria. They also participated in the “Life Without Hope” program, hosted by the members of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity.
The forum discussed changes in the HOPE scholarship and transitioned into the hosts offering advice for applying to college and personal advice for surviving through school.
There are several important things that students should know about going to college, Vanderhorst said. “They should know that they have to balance their lives and their time.”
Veronica Brinson, a defense attorney in Macon and Mercer undergraduate and law school alumni, also spoke to students during the forum about her job and answered questions about the nature of the law profession.
STING, Inc., founded in August 2009, stands for “Steering Triumphant Innovators of The Next Generation”. The organization, which is a part of the Austell Community Task Force (ACT) and the Cobb Alcohol Task Force (CAT), operates in the South Cobb area outside of Atlanta.
The organization’s mission is “to advance the intellectual and social conditions of teens through quality programs, and to equip participants to envision future possibilities, increase academic performance and empower them for success.”
STING, Inc. provides programs for students such as college fairs, Community Career Day, Global Youth Service Day, “Read to Succeed”, male mentoring and a plethora of other programs as part of its vision to “enhance teens’ abilities to live a productive and balanced lifestyle.”
Aliya McCoy, a junior at McEachern High School, said she enjoyed the tour.
“It informs me about the school and lets me know where they’re coming from,” she said.
Vanderhorst said the students were more familiar with Mercer’s Atlanta and Lithia Springs campuses but were impressed with the main campus and liked the size.
“I like Mercer. It has a homey feel and a nice atmosphere. It’s like a community and it feels like everyone is connected,” McCoy said. “I would consider coming here.”
Vanderhorst said she would definitely consider bringing students to Mercer for future tours.
(03/16/11 2:42pm)
Saving the Halls, specifically the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, is not only the mission of Save the Halls, Inc., an organization of political, community and business leaders in Macon, but also of students in a marketing research class at Mercer.
Dr. Crutchfield’s Marketing Research class began their project in September. The yearlong class, consisting of juniors and seniors, works with real-world clients each year to assess their situation and develop a marketing strategy for them.
This year, the class has been working with the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
They call the project “Save the Halls”, adopted from the official name mentioned in the media of the efforts of Save the Halls, Inc.
The class isolated two target markets: Middle Georgia families and “social sceners”—those who spend a lot of time downtown—and developed a survey to evaluate why more people do not go to the Music Hall of Fame.
Russell Boloyan, senior, said through their research they found that the lack of frequent changes in the displays at the Hall of Fame is a reason people who have been to the museum before do not normally return.
“We are working to see if they can change their displays more often and have more events at the Hall of Fame,” he said.
Boloyan said they also learned that one of the biggest reasons more people aren’t members of the Hall of Fame is because they do not know they can be members and have never been asked. He said hosting more events at the Hall would get the word out and inform people of membership opportunities.
Lisa Love, director of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame and administrator of the Request for Proposal, says the museum does not currently have the resources to analyze and evaluate consumer behavior.
“Dr. Crutchfield’s class continues to be instrumental in gathering and analyzing valuable marketing and potential visitor data,” she said. “The economy and technology are changing consumer behaviors so rapidly and radically that the constant evaluation of your performance, marketing strategies and market potential is critical to your organization’s growth.”
The class is still waiting for results from their quantitative research. Once they receive the results from the survey, they will develop and implement their strategy.
“The students have brought a level of enthusiasm and objectivity to our staff and in their research; they’ve been important sounding boards for the museum out among the community,” Love said.
Through the project, Boloyan says he has learned that most of the people they talk to in the Macon community are supportive of keeping the Hall in Macon.
“It brings a sense of pride to the city and a reason to boast about the city where we live. You are able to say, ‘Hey, my city has the Music Hall of Fame for the entire state,’—not Atlanta or Savannah or Athens, but Macon,” he said.
In February, the Georgia Music Hall of Fame Authority failed to make a recommendation to the governor for which bidding city should be awarded the Hall.
The decision for the future of the museum will be made by the end of March.
Board members will decide whether to award the museum to one of the bidding cities, see if new board member Rose Lane Leavell can raise funds to keep the museum operating for another year, or to close it.
“We are looking at the delay as an opportunity to have more time to get all the information we need and to do what we can to keep it in Macon,” Boloyan said.
(02/09/11 6:46pm)
The future of a cultural landmark in downtown Macon is uncertain as board members of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame Authority struggle with the decision to keep the museum in Macon or move it to one of three other cities.
On Sept. 30, the Georgia Music Hall of Fame Authority issued a Request For Proposals for the Operation, Management and Location of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame Museum in SB 523, passed by the legislature.
Macon’s Halls of Fame, Inc Athens Economic Development Foundation, Dunwoody Music Conservancy, Inc. and the City of Woodstock each submitted proposals that outlined plans to maintain the museum and make it self-sufficient since the state legislature decided to end funding.
The Music Hall of Fame is currently funded by earned income from ticket admissions, retail sales, rental and events, donations, appropriations from the State of Georgia and public funding from the City of Macon and Bibb County through the local hotel/motel tax.
Dahlonega, the fifth bidding city, dropped its bid before the Evaluation Team, a committee of the Authority, met to score the proposals individually and make its recommendation for which city is the most sufficient location for the museum.
On Jan. 26, the Authority met to decide whether or not to accept the recommendation of the Evaluation Team. Although Macon’s proposal scored the highest in the evaluation, the board voted in a 6-3 decision to not accept the recommendation.
The only votes for the city came from Macon native members Karla Redding-Andrews, Co-Manager, Otis Redding Estate & Project Director, Big “O” Youth Educational Dream Foundation and Vice Chair for the board, Stephen Simpson, President of the Simpson Development Group and Dr. Kirby Godsey, Chancellor of Mercer University.
Other board members decided that Macon’s rank as the highest-scored proposal did not reflect an average high score and that none of the proposals produced a long-term plan for sustainability.
The Georgia Music Hall of Fame opened its doors in Sept. 1996 in downtown Macon, Ga.
Lisa Love, director of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, said the institution of the museum began in 1979 when the Senate Music Industry Committee established and honored its first two inductees, Ray Charles and Bill Lowery.
“Gov. Zell Miller deserves much of the credit for leading the vision to create a permanent repository to house the Georgia Music Hall of Fame and preserve and perpetuate the state’s rich music heritage,” Love said.
Macon’s historical music culture has produced legendary musicians such as Little Richard, Otis Redding, the Allman Brothers and many more.
The building for Capricorn Records, home of albums by The Allman Brothers Band, the Marshall Tucker Band, and Wet Willie, and others, is also located in downtown Macon.
Jessica Walden, Communications and Marketing Director for the College Hill Alliance and Macon native, believes the music and entertainment heritage of the city makes it the ideal location for the Music Hall of Fame.
“There was a reason Macon was chosen—the strong music history,” Walden said. “There is no reason for it not to be here”.
She also believes moving the museum would be devastating to the efforts of the community to revitalize and attract more people downtown.
“We have so much momentum seeing the fruits of our labor, it would really be a blow to the morale in Macon,” she said. “There were a lot of ideas and a vision for a music and entertainment district in Macon so no matter what happens, we still need to find the means to create and support a cultural epicenter downtown”.
The board must make a recommendation to Gov. Nathan Deal on April 15 and a final decision will be made by the state on April 30. Love said no date has been set yet for a meeting to discuss the next steps.
Last month, Macon’s bid proposal to keep the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in the town was accepted.