New student organization hosts formal debate on topic of abortion to encourage understanding
November 29, 2018
A new organization on Mercer’s campus, Students for Liberty, held a debate on abortion Nov. 14 in Willingham Auditorium. The moderator, group founder Christian Watson, allowed two students, Madison Moore on the pro-life side and Ana Muntean on the pro-choice side, to debate their perspectives. M...
Making engineering a career: product developer delivers lecture on campus
November 29, 2018
Tyler Ovington, a product developer at Southern Spine, came to Mercer’s campus to discuss his job and how he obtained his position with students Nov. 12. As the only engineer at a small medical product design company in downtown Macon, Ovington said he enjoys his various day to day tasks. Ovington s...
Binary Bears secure national competition wins
November 29, 2018
Mercer University’s programming team, the Binary Bears, recently sent groups to two programming competitions, Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges (CCSC) and Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), where they ranked second and 14th respectively. “We are given problems to solve, and t...
Nontraditional students find academic success, confidence at Mercer
November 29, 2018
Nearly 75 percent of undergraduate students in America are considered to be ‘non-traditional’ by the U.S. Department of Education’s standards, and the number of adult learners has risen over the past decade. Across campuses, Mercer University has established programs to help these students go back to school ...
ATKNB: Title IX and the borrower’s defense
Marianna Bacallao, Layout Editor
November 27, 2018
The U.S. Department of Education is currently under scrutiny from the US courts for attempting to revise and replace several key university policies. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ revisions to Title IX have received backlash for reducing colleges’ responsibilities in investigating off-campus ...
“Real Talk #nofilter” prepares for student edition in December
November 27, 2018
The student edition of Real Talk #NoFilter will take place Dec. 4 in the Connell Student Center in December. There will be five student speakers who will all speak on struggles that they have faced throughout their personal and academic lives and how they demonstrated resilience in these situations ...
New Title IX coordinator selected amid controversial federal changes
Emily Rose Thorne, Lead News Writer
November 27, 2018
Mercer University selected a new Title IX Coordinator in November to replace Interim Coordinators Doug Pearson and Rhonda Lidstone. Sharon Stellato, former senior investigator at West Virginia University (WVU), plans to bring her experience with innocence claims to the Title IX process at Mercer. ...
Mercer Landing II lofts nearing completion as Phase V gets a pet-friendly update
November 27, 2018
Construction on the new “Mercer Landing II” lofts is nearing completion. The new lofts will be open and available to students in August 2019. In comparison to Phase V, the existing Lofts at Mercer Landing, the new building will be “similar yet with its own flair,” said Jonathan Leake, Dir...
Police Blotter: 5 car break-ins, backpacks and bike reported stolen
Emily Rose Thorne, News Editor
November 15, 2018
Entering auto by Orange Street apartment Reporting Officer Gary Mills responded Oct. 3 to a complaint from a student living in the Orange Street apartments that his car had been broken into overnight. The police report provided to The Cluster contained no further details. Bike theft in Plunke...
SoCon voting competition returns to campus
Rylee Kirk, Lead News Writer and Advertising Manager
November 15, 2018
With midterm elections quickly approaching, the Southern Conference (SoCon) voting competition returns to Mercer University’s campus. The SoCon competition focuses on registering students to vote in national elections. SoCon is a collegiate sports conference focused on “facilitating intercollegiate ...
How a Mercer freshman balances college and an award-winning company
November 14, 2018
Managing a small business, going to school, and having a social life is difficult. Luke Kolbie, owner of Kingfisher Leather Co. and Mercer freshman, said he believes that it is possible to manage all of these moving pieces in his life. “My strategy has been to go hard all week with school and busi...
Students, admin have mixed feelings on fall registration
Rylee Kirk and Emily Rose Thorne
November 14, 2018
Student Body President Adam Penland and Vice President Shruthi Vikraman built their platform with a heavy focus on improving course registration, a process many students last year said was slow, complicated and frustrating. Penland said in an email to The Cluster before registration began that he expe...