News at Mercer
Extraordinary Mercerian Profile
World Renowned Diaz String Trio to Perform at Mercer Nov. 13
The Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University will host its first recital on Monday,
Nov. 13, when the international noted chamber ensemble, The Diaz Trio, performs at 7:30 p.m. The event will take place in the Neva Langling Fickling Recital
Hall of the McCorkle Music Building on Mercer's Macon campus. While free and open to the public, tickets are required for admission due to the limited
seating. The Diaz Trio features renowned musicians and brothers Roberto Díaz, viola, and Andrés Díaz, cello, who is also a Distinguished
Artist of the Robert McDuffie Center, as well as renowned violinist Andrés Cárdenes. The free tickets are available through Mercer Ticket Sales at (478) 301-5470.
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Southern Chef Dupree to Speak at 17th Authors Luncheon
Mercer University presents the 17th Annual Authors Luncheon on Saturday, Nov. 11, at the Grand Hyatt Atlanta in Buckhead, 3300 Peachtree Road, NE. The program begins at 10:30 a.m., with 14 authors available to sign their books. The luncheon will start at 11:45
a.m. with four of the authors talking about their books. Featured authors are Nathalie Dupree, Nathalie Dupree's Shrimp and Grits Cookbook, Frank T.
Hollon with illustrator Elizabeth O. Dulemba, Glitter Girl and the Crazy Cheese; John Ferling,
Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, and Barbara Brown Taylor,
Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith. Other authors signing are Bonne D. Cella, Jackie K. Cooper, Sally Gable, Emily Giffin, Richard J. Hutto, Joshilyn
Jackson, William Rawlings, Glenn M. Robins, William Rawson Smith and Philip Lee Williams. Tickets are $125 per person and a table of 10 for $1,250. Reservations
can be made at (800) 837-2911. The proceeds from the event benefit the Mercer University Press.
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Mercer Undergraduate Admissions Web Site Earns Major Award
Mercer's new Admissions Web site, GoMercer.com, has earned a major
award, barely one month into its existence. The Web site earned Third Wave Digital, which designed and implemented the new Undergraduate Admissions site in close
coordination with the Mercer Web Task Force, a Best in Class award in the category of universities Web sites from the Interactive Media Awards on Oct. 27. The Best
in Class honor recognizes that the GoMercer.com Web site surpasses the standards of excellence that comprise the web's most professional work.
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Mercer Men's Basketball to Begin Season with Coaches vs. Cancer Game
The Mercer men's basketball team opens the 2006-07 campaign vs. Georgia College and State University in
their annual Coaches vs. Cancer exhibition game, Thursday, Nov. 9 in the University Center on Mercer's Macon campus. Tip-off is slated for 7 p.m. Admission is $10 for
adults and $5 for students with all of the proceeds going to the American Cancer Society. To purchase a ticket, call (478) 301-2994.
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Leader of Major Financial Services Company to Speak Nov. 13
One of the nation's leading banking executives will be the featured speaker at next week's Executive
Forum in both Macon and Atlanta. John A. Allison, chairman and CEO of BB&T Corporation, will address both Executive Forums on Monday, Nov. 13. He will
speak at noon at the Grand Hyatt Atlanta in Buckhead and at 6:30 p.m. in the University Center on Mercer's Macon campus. Allison is the leader of one of the nation's
largest and most respected companies, BB&T, which is a $116-billion financial-holding company. Under Allison's leadership, the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based BB&T
has expanded dramatically, growing from fourth largest financial-holding company in North Carolina to ninth largest in the country.
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Mercer Computer Students Take Second in Southeastern Programming Competition; Likely to Earn
Trip to Japan for World Championships
Members of Mercer's Binary Bears programming team gather in the Computer Science Building on Mercer's
Macon campus to celebrate their second place finish in the 2006 ACM Southeastern Programming Contest held on Saturday, Oct. 27. The members of Mercer's top team
include, from left to right: Senior John Wright of Warner Robins, Junior David Thomas of Macon and senior Britt Daniel of Grovetown.
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MACON — Mercer University's Binary Bears top computer
programming team took second place in the 2006 ACM Southeastern Programming Contest held on Saturday, Oct. 27, at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro.
The Binary Bears top three-man team answered nine of 10 problems, and only came in second based on the
time to completion, losing to the University of Central Florida. Mercer's top team was made up of senior Britt Daniel, a computer science and math major from
Grovetown, junior David Thomas of Macon, a computer science and math major, and senior John Wright of Warner Robins, a computer science and computational science major.
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For the team, the event was the culmination of long hours spent programming their way through hundreds
of problems. The three spent time individually working over the summer and have spent a number of Saturdays this fall practicing for the competition.
"It was just really exciting and really rewarding," said Wright, a graduate of Mount de Sales Academy in Macon.
"You put in all the work and take second place, and you get a chance to go to Japan. It's just exciting."
The five-hour competition, in which more than 70 teams from universities around the Southeast competed, was a roller-coaster
ride, the three said. The Mercer team started realizing their success in the final hour by answering correctly nine problems out of 10, assuring themselves of a second place finish.
Third place finishers Florida Tech and fourth place Georgia Tech only managed to answer seven questions.
Though the team members could see the unofficial results on the scoreboard during and after the competition, the team had to
wait more than an hour before receiving the official results. The wait was agonizing, the three said.
"It was actually really hard to wait; we were just so jittery" said Daniel, who graduated from Oconee County High
School. "They had an awards dinner, and it was almost hard to eat we were so excited."
The Binary Bears are now awaiting word from the World Finals Executive Committee, which meets in December after all the regionals
are complete around the world, to learn if they have qualified for a trip to the 2007 World Finals, which will be held in Tokyo, Japan, in March. Second place finishers in the Southeastern
region are nearly always granted a wild card spot, and the team members are already thinking about preparations.
"We don't know yet whether we're going to Japan, but we are going to start training for the World Finals –
just in case," said Thomas, a graduate of Central Fellowship Christian Academy.
Andy Digh, computer science associate professor and the Binary Bears advisor, expects the team to qualify for the all-expense-paid
trip to the World Finals. Last year, the top two teams, Central Florida and Georgia Tech, each solved nine of 10 problems and were invited to the World Finals, Digh noted.
"It's just amazing what they accomplished," Digh said. "We've steadily improved every year in the
rankings for the last nine years. Seeing we could compete among the top teams gave us tremendous confidence and helped us believe we could go to the World Finals, too."
The Binary Bears sent a total of five teams of three to Saturday's contest. All five teams placed in the top 34 among the 70
teams from the Southeastern United States.
The team goes this week to the CCSC Small College Competition in Nashville, Tenn., on the campus of Lipscomb University.
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