Mercer University history

During the April 1870 Georgia Baptist Convention (GBC) meeting, the decision is made to move Mercer away from Penfield.

It was moved to Macon in 1871.

A law school is organized and classes begin in February 1874.

1, 1918, and continues until the following spring.

The Navy V-12 School is established on July 1 and continues until October 1945.

Mercer expanded to Atlanta in 1959 when the university absorbed the independent Southern School of Pharmacy.

Atlanta Baptist College was founded in 1968 under the leadership of Doctor Monroe F. Swilley, a prominent Baptist educator.

The College of Liberal Arts, the School of Law, and the Southern School of Pharmacy comprised the university until 1972 when Mercer merged with Atlanta Baptist College, which became Mercer's Atlanta campus.

Columbus joins Macon – where the School was established in 1982 to prepare physicians for rural and medically underserved areas of Georgia – and Savannah in hosting campuses for the medical school.

Mercer, founded by early 19th-century Baptists, ended its affiliation with the Georgia Baptist Convention in 2006 after 173 years.

The Mercer On Mission service-learning program, launched in 2007, has been recognized by the Clinton Global Initiative as "an exemplary approach to addressing a specific global challenge." It helps students combine research, study abroad and service-learning under faculty direction.

Mercer opened its second four-year medical school, in Savannah, in 2008.

Mercer received a $5 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in 2009 to support continued revitalization of the College Hill Corridor between campus and downtown Macon.

Mercer opened a large retail-residential center on the Macon campus in 2011.

More than 6,000 guests witness the largest 2012 ceremony, held on the upper fields of the campus.

The multi-campus Mercer University Health Sciences Center, which incorporates programs offered by the School of Medicine, the College of Pharmacy, the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing, and the new College of Health Professions, opened in 2013.

On October 31, 2014, Mercer announced an effort to raise $400 million, including $207 million for its endowment, $109 million for capital projects, and $84 million for operations.

Mercer Lofts IV, known as the Lofts at College Hill, opened in 2015; the housing-retail complex is designed for graduate and professional students and is located adjacent to Macon's main post office between College Street and Interstate 75, near the Walter F. George School of Law.

The University funded the scholarship program with the entirety of a one-time infusion of $35 million from the state of Georgia as a result of a settlement agreement offer from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in February 2016.

A five-year, $300,000 Peyton Anderson Foundation grant brought symphony orchestra back to Macon for the first time since 2017 with the announcement of the Macon-Mercer Symphony Orchestra.

The University dedicated in April 2018 the new $44 million Godsey Science Center.