The board of trustees of Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, New York, has chosen Susan L. Parish as the thirteenth president of the educational institution, which was founded in 1950. Dr. Parish will take office on July 1.
Mercy College enrolls just over 6,500 undergraduate students and more than 2,200 graduate students according to the most recent statistics furnished by the U.S. Department of Education. With a major focus on nursing and the health professions, women make up 70 percent of the undergraduate student body.
“I am honored and delighted for the opportunity to lead Mercy College, which is laser-focused on making college affordable and accessible to all students,” said Dr. Parish. “I am deeply committed to Mercy’s mission of delivering exceptional educational experiences that enable students to achieve their academic and career aspirations. I look forward to working collaboratively with faculty and staff to achieve this important goal.”
Currently, Dr. Parish is dean of the College of Health Professions and Sentara Professor of Health Administration at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Prior to joining the faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University, she served as dean of BouveÌ College of Health Sciences at Northeastern University in Boston.
Dr. Parish earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature and a master of social work degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey. She earned a Ph.D. in public health from the University of Illinois Chicago and completed a National Institutes of Health-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the Waisman Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.