Mercy College (New York)


Mercy College is a private college with its main campus in Dobbs Ferry, New York and additional locations in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Yorktown Heights. The university is historically affiliated with the Roman Catholic church. Mercy College has five schools: Business, Education, Health & Natural Sciences, Liberal Arts and Social & Behavioral Sciences, and offers more than 90 undergraduate and graduate degree and certificate programs. The university had 11,295 students enrolled in fall 2015. The student body comes from 43 states and 54 countries.
Mercy College is a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the East Coast Conference. Mercy College's athletic teams compete in Division II of the NCAA and are known collectively as the Mercy Mavericks.

History

Founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1950, Mercy College became a four-year college offering programs leading to the baccalaureate degree in 1961. The college was accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education in 1968. In the next half-decade, Mercy College set a course for its future with a series of actions including declaring itself independent and co-educational. In addition, it doubled the size of the existing physical plant and initiated the first of many community outreach efforts. Mercy College in the 1970s broadened its outreach through the establishment of extension centers and branch campuses throughout communities in Westchester County and New York City.
Mercy College was authorized to offer its first graduate program, nursing, in 1981. Since then, over 30 diverse graduate programs have been introduced, and in 2006, the college was granted authorization to offer its first doctoral program in physical therapy. The college expanded its offerings to include online programs in the 1990s, and was soon granted the ability to offer entire degree programs online. Thousands of Mercy College students take one or all of their courses online through the more than 40 undergraduate and graduate programs offered.
In 2004, Timothy L. Hall, the former president of Austin Peay State University, as well as the former provost of University of Mississippi, became the 12th president of Mercy College.
In January 2017, founding dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and associate vice president for academic affairs at Western New Mexico University, as well as a former program director at the National Science Foundation, Dr. José Herrera, was appointed the new provost and vice president of academic affairs of Mercy College.
In early 2019, Mercy College and the College of New Rochelle announced that College of New Rochelle would be absorbed into Mercy College before Fall 2019, including College of New Rochelle's students, faculty, programs, some facilities, as well as transcripts, history and legacy of CNR alumnae/i. Mercy College would become the repository of CNR documents.
In March 2019, the agreement between the College of New Rochelle and Mercy College was finalized.
On August 12, 2019 it was announced that William Latimer, the 14th and final College of New Rochelle president, will join Mercy College as vice president of its New Rochelle and Bronx locations.

Campus

Dobbs Ferry main campus

The main campus is in Dobbs Ferry, New York, overlooking the Hudson River. The campus encompasses 66 acres alongside the Hudson River in Dobbs Ferry, New York, a suburb of Westchester County, north of New York City. In addition to academic and administrative buildings, it houses the college's residence and athletics buildings. In 2011, Mercy College bought the Our Lady of Victory Academy building after the school closed. Dobbs Ferry students enjoy all the nearby shopping and restaurants, just steps from campus, as well as biking, jogging, or walking along the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail that runs through campus. The Dobbs Ferry main campus is just a short walk from the Ardsley-on-Hudson Station of the Metro-North Hudson Line, making Grand Central Terminal in New York City accessible in less than 30 minutes. In December 2015, the college opened a new 350-bed, state-of-the-art residence hall complex that includes a 5,000-square-foot fitness center facility and student commons with shops.
Mercy College hosted the Third Round and Quarterfinals of the 2017 NCAA Division II Women's Soccer Championships at Mercy Field on the Dobbs Ferry main campus.

Sites

Manhattan

The Manhattan site is situated in the heart of Manhattan at Herald Square and occupies two floors at 66 W 35th St.

Bronx

The Bronx site occupies at the Hutchinson Metro Center, a rapidly developing complex of corporate and health care organizations and businesses.

Yorktown Heights

In 1979, the Yorktown site of Mercy College was moved to its permanent facility at the intersection of Route 202 and Strang Boulevard. This beautifully landscaped building was renovated for college use. The branch library of Mercy College on Mercy College's Yorktown site has been designated a federal depository for government publications. In Yorktown Heights, students have access to Northern Westchester, Putnam, Rockland, Dutchess and Fairfield Counties. The site is close to Franklin Delano Roosevelt State Park, which offers extensive outdoor recreational activities.

Former College of New Rochelle campus lease

Starting in fall 2019, Mercy is leasing CNR’s main campus in New Rochelle for up to two years, at $1.8 million a year, and nearly 1,700 students from CNR will become Mercy students.
Mercy has negotiated leases for three former CNR campuses including New Rochelle, Rosa Parks in Harlem and the Brooklyn Campus in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.

Academics

Schools

Mercy College has five schools:
Mercy College offers more than 90 undergraduate and graduate degree and certificate programs, including more than two dozen that can be completed online. The faculty comprises 210 full-time professors with a significant majority holding the highest degree in their respective fields, Fulbright Scholars, published and national best-selling authors, and experts.

Reputation and rankings

Peterson's classed Mercy College's admissions process as "moderately difficult". Undergraduate acceptance rate was 66% in Fall 2015. The average high school GPA of incoming freshmen was 84.75/100 in Fall 2015. Mercy College's School of Business had a 68% acceptance rate in 2017. The MBA program's admission rate in Fall 2018 was 27%.

Demographics

As of 2014, the undergraduate population includes 7,157 full-time and 2,942 part-time students with 31 percent of freshmen and 12 percent of all full-time undergraduates residing in campus-affiliated housing. While the majority of students are New York residents, students represent 43 states and 54 countries. Mercy College offers small class sizes with an average student/faculty ratio of 20:1. 88% of students are commuters; 12% live in campus housing. Mercy College has 71% female students and 29% male students.

Accreditation

All campuses of Mercy College are accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Among others, Mercy College holds professional accreditations with:
Mercy College houses four university libraries. Branch libraries are present on all of Mercy's sites. Its main flagship library is on the Dobbs Ferry Campus. The library at Mercy's Yorktown site has been designated a federal depository for government publications.

Athletics

Mercy College sponsors an intramural sports program, as well as intercollegiate competition in 10 varsity teams, which compete at the Division II level. The college is a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the East Coast Conference. Varsity men's programs include baseball, basketball, lacrosse, and soccer. Women's athletic teams compete in basketball, field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball and volleyball. The baseball, lacrosse, soccer, and field hockey teams, in addition to numerous local community high school and youth groups, play on a new, eco-friendly turf field on the Dobbs Ferry campus, overlooking the Hudson River.
In 2007, the college changed its athletic nickname from "Flyers" to "Mavericks" after the administration reviewed and narrowed suggestions from students and faculty members.

Student life

Student government

The Mercy College Student Government Association is responsible for protecting students’ rights, advocating for students’ interests, and promoting student life.

ROTC

Mercy College has U.S. Army ROTC and U.S. Navy ROTC programs on campus.

Notable people

Notable faculty and staff

Mercy College had more than 66,710 alumni as of 2019. Additionally, the now-defunct College of New Rochelle 's more than 50,000 alumni have been merged into the Mercy College Family.