BY VALERIE HINES rvin Anderson—or, “Mr. A” as his students and mentees refer to him—has been a proud fixture of Georgia Southwestern for 34 years. With a focus on academic excellence, athletic involvement, and social responsibility, he’s touched the lives of many GSW students in his time as a lecturer of mathematics and student organization advisor. Ervin grew up in Dublin, Georgia, and took an interest in math at an early age. “The style, enthusiasm, and teaching techniques of my ninth-grade math teacher greatly influenced my decision to become a college math major,” he says. He graduated from Savannah State University in 1978 with a mathematics degree, then began teaching high school math for three years before serving in the U.S. Navy from
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1981-1985. Ervin and his wife, Debra, a charge auditor at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center, have been married for 42 years. They have three children, Chadrick, Brandon, and Jeremy, eleven grandchildren, and a great grandson. He started his career at GSW in 1985 just out of the Navy as a lab instructor. By the time he retired in May of 2019, he was a senior lecturer in Mathematics and had a great deal of student mentoring experience under his belt. He also earned his Master of Education in Mathematics from GSW while working for the university. “I loved participating in intramural sports and winning championships in basketball, flag football, and softball almost every year as the oldest player participating,” Ervin says. He participated in intramurals for 20 years and says he holds “just about every record” in intramural sports.
His involvement in the African American Male Initiative (AAMI), however, is where he really seemed to leave his mark. Anderson has been the executive director of the AAMI at GSW since the university became a cohort of the program in 2008. The initiative was created to recruit, educate, and increase the number of African-American male students who graduate. Since the initial study that identified the need to fill these gaps was conducted, AAMI organizations have been developed at several University System of Georgia institutions across the state, and Anderson was integral in getting GSW’s program off the ground. Since its inception, GSW’s AAMI program has received $232,000 in funds from AAMI grants and two other grants under the leadership of Anderson. But the mission of the program—academic excellence and social responsibility—is one that’s close to Anderson’s heart. He has
