Talk:Mercer University/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Baptist Affiliation

Mercer's Baptist affiliation or lack thereof can be confusing. Mercer was affiliated with the Georgia Baptist Convention (and the Southern Baptist Convention; the GBC is part of the SBC) until 2006. Mercer is now independent; formal ties with the GBC no longer exist. Mercer however, remains affiliated with a large number of individual Baptist churches in Georgia who support the university's Baptist Scholars Fund that provides scholarships for Baptist students. In addition, Mercer's McAfee School of Theology is affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The CBF provides financial support for operating costs, scholarships, etc. Also, the American Baptist Historical Society and the Baptist History and Heritage Society have announced plans, in 2006 and 2007 respectively, to relocate to the Atlanta campus.

Bottomline: Mercer is independent, but is not "unaffiliated" with Baptists. Mercer is affiliated at various levels with various groups. In order to prevent confusion, it is probably best to say that Mercer as a whole is "independent" without mentioning affiliations unless reference is also made to which part of of the university is being discussed.

Future: Mercer's president, William D. Underwood, has announced a desire to make Mercer the first "national" Baptist university much like Notre Dame University and Brigham Young University are for their religious groups. "National" refers to Mercer as a large Baptist university without ties to a "state" Baptist convention. Mercer's goal contrasts with other historically Baptist universities such as Wake Forest University, Furman University, and the University of Richmond that became secular after severing ties with their state conventions, and with Baylor University and Samford University that remain affiliated with the Baptist conventions in their states.

Candle Lighting

The candle lighting is at the end of freshman orientation. It has become a Mercer tradition where all incoming freshman make a circle on the Quad and light the candles, signifing the start of their journey at Mercer.

Not done in my day, 1968. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.82.125.29 (talk) 01:12, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


~No longer done - at least not this year, although the Freshmen do go up and sign the tower of the administration building.

Comparable Schools

I removed the Comparable Schools section, as it is uncommon (and inappropriate) to list such subjective comparisons in an objective article on Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view Krazos 23:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Lack of pictures

I'm surprised that this article doesn't have many pictures. Mercer's campus is consistently ranked one of the most beautiful in America. I've been there myself; it's an accurate description. Does anybody out there go to mercer and have a camera? I would take some myself, but I don't have a decent camera. --BWD (talk) 18:14, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

SGA website Link

Why was the link to the SGA website removed? The site is the offical site for SGA and useful to people looking for information about Mercer.

Engineering Section

The engineering section states that Robins AFB maintains an educational partnership providing on-base internships (etc) for aerospace engineering students. It provides internship for more than just the aerospace engineering students, perhaps remove aerospace from the sentence? 137.244.215.51 (talk) 18:40, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Lack of balance

The tone of this article is that of a booster's pamphlet. It lacks detachment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oppugn (talk • contribs) 10:31, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The tone of the article is an embarrassment to Wikipedia and should be flagged. Reads like an admissions brochure. 179.60.219.47 (talk) 21:15, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

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Desegregation

Mercer was the first private University in the "Deep South" to voluntarily desegregate. I do not believe that there is any scholarly debate on this point. Two examples (specific to GA): The University of Georgia desegregated beforehand; it was by court mandate. Emory University voluntarily desegrated; it occurred after Mercer. This seems an important note for Wikipedia to make, not only about Mercer but about the history of desegregation in the South. However, every time I have made this suggestion--backed by multiple scholarly footnotes--someone has removed the claim. Why? Do you think it is not true? Or, if true, do you oppose it being included? Please share your thoughts. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8807:A409:AC00:A8F8:B519:C18B:4F50 (talk) 17:44, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Please provide reliable, independent sources that support this claim. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 18:11, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
Here are a few sources: 1. A peer-reviewed journal article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40583492 2. An oral history interview (from the point of view of the administration): https://faculty.mercer.edu/davis_da/fys102/Peter_Brown.pdf 3. An second oral history (from the point of view of Sam Oni, the student who first integrated Mercer) https://faculty.mercer.edu/davis_da/fys102/Sam_Oni.pdf 4. A book-length manuscript (Note it is published by Mercer University Press; that could be read as biased): Manis, Andrew Michael. Macon black and white: An unutterable separation in the American century. Mercer University Press, 2004.
However, I do think it might improve the citation to make at least two changes: List "GA" instead of the "the South" or "The Deep South" ("the South" is a vague term, and there could be some debate about Wake Forest.)2. Add in a longer section about the history part of the article. I want to keep the focus on the history and, as you say, make sure it does not come across as promotional for the University. Please know: I welcome any other ideas or thoughts that might help make this clear. Thank you for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8807:A409:AC00:A8F8:B519:C18B:4F50 (talk) 19:05, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
We don't cite or rely on primary sources such as interviews so we can set them aside. A book about the university published by its own press is not independent so we can set that source aside, too. That leaves us with the 1996 article by Alan Scot Willis in The Georgia Historical Quarterly which is a pretty good source. We are not obligated to include everything that is published in reliable sources, however, so we now need to decide if this is information that should be included in this article and, if we include it, how to best include it.
I think it's reasonable to include the date of desegregation and some relevant context in the history section of the article. I am completely opposed to including it in any form in the lede of the article (where it was previously inserted before being removed and this discussion opened) as it's not information that is essential for readers to know immediately when first reading this article.
I would not support adding text to this article that attempts to paint the university and its administrators and faculty as being more morally pure or just than other colleges and universities in the south. I acknowledge that Willis says that "[u]nlike many universities in the South, Mercer desegregated on moral grounds, while law was at most a secondary consideration." But that - one source - does not seem sufficient to make any strong claims in this article especially given the larger historical context (i.e., Mercer could have discovered these moral values at any point in time, not just after Brown and subsequent legal judgements and legislation made it apparent that segregation was ending one way or another). We could perhaps say that the university's administrators believed they were making the decision primarily on moral grounds if other editors think that is critical to include (I would simply give the date when desegregation occurred and leave it at that). ElKevbo (talk) 19:24, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
I appreciate the help and advice. However, there is one point I have to disagree with you on: I would think the thoughts of Sam Oni, the student who was part of the effort to integrate, is relevant--how could we want to ignore his own views on the situation? That view would seem...troubling. In any case, the question is not: Is Mercer morally pure? Of course not (it didn't integrate for many years--it was far from ideal once integrated, it still has problems related to race, etc). However, there would seem to be something distinct about Mercer's integration different than some other Universities in the "Deep South" at the time which is historically relevant. And, it would seem to be exactly the point that you cite (hence the emphasis on the term "voluntary;") there was, that I can find at least, no outside pressure on Mercer to integrate at the time (no laws, no court cases, no protests); indeed, quite the opposite: the sources you discount point out the integration caused a significant rift with the larger Macon community which retaliated against Mercer (as well a rift and retaliation from some national Baptist organizations) In other words, despite pressure not to integrate, the Mercer administration--at this one particular time--did so based on, at least they claim, fundamental beliefs and principles.
In terms of the lede, I agree with you: The earlier version was not adequately written and could across as promotional. Wake Forest, which is the most similar institution, includes the history of desegregation in the history section. I think that is the best path moving forward. Again, thank you for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8807:A409:AC00:A8F8:B519:C18B:4F50 (talk) 22:50, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
With respect to the views of Oni, I strongly recommend that you review WP:OR: we do not publish original research including material that relies on the interpretation of primary sources such as interviews and oral histories.
Reasonable people can disagree with whether we should include information from the Willis article. I think that WP:DUE is the guiding principle behind my opposition to its inclusion as one source does not convince me that this is a understanding of history that is prominent enough to warrant inclusion in an encyclopedia article. Are there other independent, high quality, and reliable sources that share his interpretation of history? ElKevbo (talk) 04:19, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

If interested, here are few more: http://crdl.usg.edu/export/html/ugabma/wsbn/crdl_ugabma_wsbn_wsbn50156.html, https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/desegregation-higher-education, https://www.nytimes.com/1963/04/19/archives/georgia-college-to-desegregate-mercer-to-admit-ghanaian-converted.html, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.198.146.234 (talk) 22:03, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

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