Macon Telegraph Logo

Underwood leading Mercer into new era | Macon Telegraph

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Customer Service
    • Mobile & Apps
    • Newsletters
    • Buy Photos and Pages
    • Contact Us
    • Newsletters
    • Subscribe
    • Archive Search

    • All News
    • Local
    • Houston & Peach
    • The Sun News
    • Crime
    • Food Story
    • Education
    • Databases
    • Business
    • Nation/World
    • Opinion
    • Weird News
    • All Sports
    • High Schools
    • University of Georgia
    • Bulldogs Beat
    • Georgia Tech
    • Mercer
    • Columns & Blogs
    • MLB & Braves
    • NFL & Falcons
    • NBA & Hawks
    • Auto Racing
    • Golf
    • NHL/Macon Mayhem
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • All Living
    • Family
    • Food
    • Home & Garden
    • Religion
    • Celebrations
    • Mark Ballard
    • Dear Abby
    • Entertainment
    • Out & About
    • Celebrities
    • Music
    • Restaurants
    • Comics
    • Puzzles & Games
    • Horoscopes
    • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Submit a Letter
    • Blogs & Columns
    • Opinion Columns & Blogs
    • Your Say
  • Obituaries
  • Education Together
  • Best of the Best

  • Classifieds
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Cars
  • Homes
  • Place An Ad
  • Contests

  • About Us
  • Mobile & Apps

News

Underwood leading Mercer into new era

By GERRY FORD - Telegraph correspondent

    ORDER REPRINT →

July 28, 2010 12:00 AM

A couple of feet from his desk, Bill Underwood keeps a three-foot stack of federal legal decisions that he reads in his spare time.

But Underwood has had very little of that since becoming president of Mercer University in July 2006.

This month, as he marks four years leading the 177-year-old Macon university, Underwood said he’s pleased with the progress being made, and he looks forward to more accomplishments in the near future.

“There are some things that have really developed that I feel are essential to the university’s future,” he said. Chief among them is the College Hill Corridor Commission, the partnership formed by the city of Macon and Mercer in support of a student project focusing on redeveloping downtown.

SIGN UP

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to The Telegraph

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

The project has blossomed into a public and privately funded plan that’s focused on improving the commercial and residential areas between the Mercer campus and downtown Macon.

“That project is all about creating an environment that is appealing to bright and talented people, whether they are faculty, staff or students,” Underwood said.

Sarah Gerwig-Moore, co-chairwoman of the College Hill Commission and an assistant professor at Mercer’s law school, called Underwood “a careful thinker — a methodical thinker.”

“He has a lot of energy,” she said. “I think a lot of people are remotivated and re-energized by him.”

Underwood said one of his main responsibilities is to build a “community” that attracts top-notch students, staff and faculty.

The College Hill Commission is just one of the projects that’s moving toward that goal. Athletics, the arts and academic services are equally as important, Underwood said.

Under his tenure, Mercer has hired a new athletics director as well as men’s and women’s basketball coaches. Lacrosse is being added this fall, and football is being evaluated as a new, nonscholarship sport.

“I think athletics has a quality that can unite a community, even for just a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon,” Underwood said. “I think establishing those emotional connections, it is really important with your alumni.

“I have got interest in football, but I have said from the get-go it has to make economic sense for the institution for us to do that,” he added. “I have to be convinced that it would pay for itself. I am not really talking about selling tickets, but I am talking about attracting students. And I would have to have the ability to raise funds for the facilities we would need. We don’t have a stadium. ... There are three leagues in the country that play Division 1 nonscholarship football — the Ivy League, the Patriot League and the Pioneer League. That would make sense for us.”

Homecoming, until Underwood arrived, was a less significant alumni event at Mercer. It’s now a focus area for the administration and is part of the overall fundraising and development efforts that eat up about 40 percent of his time.

“I would say the economic downturn has really interrupted the progress we would have wanted to make,” he said. “While it has started to recover, it is not to the point of prior to the economic downturn.”

A growing university

Mercer is continuing to expand its reach and student population during Underwood’s tenure. Mercer, which has about 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled, has opened locations in Eastman as well as Henry and Douglas counties, combining with existing locations in Macon, Atlanta and Savannah. The school operates medical, nursing, engineering, pharmacy and theology schools.

Underwood looks at facility expansion as part of the overall growth plan of the university. In five years, Underwood believes, it would be realistic for Mercer to have 10,000 students, with 60 percent of those attending the Atlanta campuses.

But Underwood quickly adds that site and student expansion should happen naturally and isn’t a primary focus of his administration.

“What I would really like us to focus on is continuing to deepen the quality of existing programs,” he said.

Underwood wants Mercer to be compared with other universities, such as Emory, Duke, Wake Forest and Vanderbilt.

“If we are going to achieve our aspiration of having the same academic profiles that the other great private research universities in the Southeast have, we are going to have to continue building quality,” he said.

As part of Underwood’s initial Mercer vision, building a research effort that has a distinctive agenda has remained important to him.

“I am really pleased with the progress we have made in building a robust research agenda at the university and building a special type of research university,” he said. “What I like about the research agenda that our faculty is pursuing is that they are involving their students directly in their research including their undergraduate students.”

Back in the classroom

Underwood said he plans to stay at Mercer as long as he can be effective and has plans to finish his career in the classroom teaching law.

“When I was in law school, I thought the greatest lawyers were the ones teaching law school,” he said.

For those who know him, they’re not surprised he wants to eventually return to the classroom.

Gerald Powell, dean of Baylor’s law school who worked with Underwood at Baylor, said, “Bill was a very capable young lawyer in Dallas. We heard about him and recruited him to our team. He was like a great athlete, and we went after him” to teach law.

Before taking the position at Baylor, Underwood practiced civil trial law with Carrington, Coleman, Sloman & Blumenthal in Dallas.

Ten years after being hired by Baylor as a professor in 1993, Underwood was asked in 2003 by Herbert Reynolds, then Baylor’s president, to lead an internal NCAA investigation into Baylor basketball infractions that involved a student-athlete’s death. This high-profile activity came at the same time he was teaching, leading the law school’s Practice Court Program and handling legal cases on the side.

In 2005, Underwood served as interim Baylor president. During that time, the 14,000-student Baptist institution was under pressure from forces trying to choose the vision of the private institution.

“He really became a general or commander-in-chief in a civil war,” said Randall O’Brien, current president of Carson-Newman College in Johnson City, Tenn. “Baylor had become divided, and Bill was put in a nearly impossible situation.”

Underwood used his talent and “unparalleled work ethic” to build relationships on both sides of the situation, eventually “going a long way to calming those stormy seas,” said O’Brien, who worked along with Underwood as dean of the religion program at Baylor and eventually worked as provost for Underwood.

Taking over Mercer after Kirby Godsey, who served as president for 27 years, Underwood said he has a lot of respect for his predecessor.

“To be someone who reinvented himself to remain fresh for 27 years is remarkable,” he said. “I am not going to fill Kirby Godsey’s shoes.”

But Underwood continues to rely on characteristics that have made him a successful lawyer to lead Mercer into a new era.

  Comments  

Videos

They called her ‘upside down glasses.’ Now she owns it

Barberitos shooting witness recalls what she saw night of killing

View More Video

Trending Stories

Man run over by train in Macon suicide linked to 1991 vanishing of Sabrina Long

February 21, 2019 03:48 PM

Missouri woman dies from injuries after chain-reaction crashes on I-75 near Perry

February 22, 2019 12:38 PM

Macon-Bibb commissioner ‘maintains his innocence’ after DUI arrest in downtown

February 22, 2019 06:27 AM

Macon is known for mayhem and murder. But is that reputation fair?

February 21, 2019 07:00 AM

Ga.’s shame: Speaker is using his position to delay trial for accused rapist, others

February 21, 2019 02:24 PM

Read Next

The Latest: Kelly lawyer: New charge may be from old case
Video media Created with Sketch.

Celebrities

The Latest: Kelly lawyer: New charge may be from old case

The Associated Press

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 22, 2019 10:05 PM

R. Kelly's attorney says one of the charges the R&B star faces appears to be tied to a decade-old child pornography case.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to The Telegraph

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE NEWS

Chicago police: Singer R. Kelly arrested at precinct

Celebrities

Chicago police: Singer R. Kelly arrested at precinct

February 22, 2019 09:58 PM
Wake Forest dean apologizes after 37-year-old yearbook photo resurfaces

National

Wake Forest dean apologizes after 37-year-old yearbook photo resurfaces

February 22, 2019 04:36 PM
Patriots owner Robert Kraft accused of soliciting prostitute

Business

Patriots owner Robert Kraft accused of soliciting prostitute

February 22, 2019 08:00 PM
Case against R. Kelly may be stronger this time

Celebrities

Case against R. Kelly may be stronger this time

February 22, 2019 07:59 PM

National

Patriots owner Robert Kraft is among the hundreds charged in Florida sex traffic sting

February 22, 2019 12:23 PM

Local

There’s still time to register for the sixth-annual Greater Macon Sleepout at Daybreak

February 22, 2019 06:17 PM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Macon Telegraph App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Archives
Advertising
  • Place a Classified Ad
  • Advertise with Us
  • Local Deals
Copyright
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story