New President at Mercy College

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Dr. Susan L. Parish, Mercy's new President

January 24, 2023

Dr. Susan L. Parish, whose academic specialty is Health Administration, has been named to succeed Dr. Tim Hall as the 13th President of Mercy College, whose main campus is in Dobbs Ferry.

Dr. Parish comes from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) where she is currently Dean of the College of Health Professions and Sentara Professor of Health Administration. She will take up her new post on June 30, 2023.

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In a statement released on January 24, Mercy states that under her leadership, the College of Health Professions at VCU “experienced significant increases in graduate and undergraduate enrollment, and research funding. Under her leadership, the College also launched an innovative liberal arts undergraduate degree in Health Services in 2020 and developed new certificate programs and graduate concentrations.”

Before joining VCU, Dr. Parish served as dean of Bouvé College of Health Sciences at Northeastern University. At both institutions, she developed a track record as a fundraiser. “At Northeastern and VCU,” according to the Mercy announcement, “she partnered with a range of individual donors and foundations to create new scholarship funds, a student emergency fund, and support for faculty, health innovation, and teaching and research labs.”

“Over the course of her career, Dr. Parish has been a prolific researcher primarily in the area of health disparities for people with disabilities and has garnered more than $13 million in external research funding,” the announcement stated. “She has received distinctions for her teaching, mentoring and research, including: “Research Matters!” Distinguished Research Award, Arc of the United States (2009), Advocate Hero, Exceptional Parent Magazine (2021), Lifetime Achievement Award, American Public Health Association Disability Section (2021) and Research Award, American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (2019).”

Dr. Parish earned her B.A. in English Literature and M.S.W. from Rutgers University. She earned her Ph.D. in Public Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago and completed a National Institutes of Health-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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