The fund is named for Downs’ father and for his uncle Gene, a role model and fellow Davidson basketball fan who cemented Downs’ love of travel and adventure.
“I didn’t do any international travel at Davidson because in my time there, our study abroad options were limited,” he said. “I didn’t want to uproot my campus life to go to Germany or France for a year. Now, students have so many more options to get a taste of international travel without sacrificing their college experience.”
Traveling With R.E.M.
For more than 40 years, Downs has enjoyed a career as the long-time lawyer, advisor and manager to the groundbreaking alternative rock band R.E.M.
His interest in the music industry was first piqued as a Davidson student, where he worked at WDAV, then a student-run radio station. A fan of Neil Young and the Allman Brothers Band, he enjoyed finding up-and-coming new bands to play on-air. As an upperclassman, he served on the Union Board concert committee and helped bring shows to campus.
“I was always a student of the game,” he said. “I was interested early on in the process of bands becoming successful both as artists and as businesses.”
After graduating, he attended law school at the University of Georgia, originally planning to become a public service lawyer. During this time, he made frequent visits to Wuxtry Records in Athens, where he would buy Neil Young records and talk music with one of the store’s employees, Peter Buck, who would soon become R.E.M.’s co-founder and lead guitarist.
Through Buck and the university’s concert committee, Downs met drummer Bill Berry and saw R.E.M. play live for the first time.
After graduating in 1981, he began helping the band navigate their first legal contracts, offering his advice as he learned more about entertainment law. Over time, as their success grew, what started as a volunteer hobby turned into a full-time job.
“I had luck on my side and the benefit of a band that kept writing good songs,” Downs said.
“Two years into their career, I knew that they could do this. They didn’t just write one good album — they kept going.”
Two months before releasing their debut studio album, Murmur, Downs helped coordinate a show in the C. Shaw Smith 900 Room. Just three months later, the band returned to Davidson to celebrate their album release with a much bigger show in Love Auditorium, now the Lilly Family Gallery.
“As an alum, that was special for me,” Downs said. “I remember feeling like we’d really made it. I had no idea what was to come.”
Over the next three decades, R.E.M. released 15 studio albums, played multiple international tours and secured their spot as one of America’s most influential rock bands.
Downs mostly worked from Athens during the first decade of the band’s success, but in 1995, he joined them more frequently on the road. Traveling became an integral part of his career during these years and influenced his decision to support international travel opportunities at Davidson.
“I see the importance of travel in students’ lives,” he said. “I was able to go to Davidson partially because of the Thompson Honor Scholarship. I was a work-study student throughout my four years, and having that support for my education changed my life. I’ve always felt an obligation to give back the same way I was given to. It feels like a very fair exchange.”
Since its creation in 2020, the Downs Education Abroad Fund has supported seven student study abroad experiences across the globe, sending Davidson scholars to places like Denmark, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and Botswana.