ERIE | NORTH EAST | WEST | CORRY | BTW CENTER

• Home »
• Campus »
• Campus Profiles »
• Erie Campus

2010-2011 Profile of Mercyhurst College Erie Campus

RECENT CAMPUS DEVELOPMENTS

2011

• Mercyhurst College opened the 2011-2012 academic year with an estimated 763 new undergraduates, including 673 traditional-age freshmen and 90 transfer students on the Erie campus. Students hail from 27 states and 19 foreign countries; 15 percent represent racial and ethnic minorities. Mercyhurst Erie also enrolled 145 new adult undergraduates and 150 graduate students.
• Five years after cracking the top tier of Best Regional Universities (North) in U.S.News & World Report's rankings of “America’s Best Colleges,” Mercyhurst reached No. 49 on the magazine’s 2012 list, continuing an upward trajectory that has seen the institution climb 36 spots in the past three years.
• Mercyhurst launched the Institute for Public Health, a new academic/research/service initiative led by Pittsburgh native and 1997 Mercyhurst alumnus David Dausey, Ph.D., an internationally respected public health expert.
• Mercyhurst announced its seventh master's degree program - exercise science - which began fall term as an offering of the sportsmedicine department.
• The Mercyhurst College Institute for Intelligence Studies hosted its second Global Intelligence Forum in Dungarvan, Ireland, during summer 2011, with former CIA director Michael V. Hayden as its keynote speaker.
• Mercyhurst’s “Spring Term in Ireland” experienced its second year and anticipates sending another group of Mercyhurst students and professors to the college’s satellite campus on the Emerald Isle this coming March.
• Dr. Gary Brown, who led Mercyhurst North East (MNE) for the past 15 years, left his role as executive vice president to assume a new post on the Erie campus as senior vice president and senior financial strategist. Dr. Kenneth Zirkle was named acting MNE vice president.
• A partnership between Mercyhurst and the Booker T. Washington Center, launched in Fall 2010 to provide higher education to an underserved population of the Erie community, doubled both its enrollment and course offerings in Fall 2011, going from 14 to 33 students and from three to six classes.
• The City of Erie and Mercyhurst College hosted the Women’s Frozen Four at Tullio Arena in March 2011, marking the first time the NCAA Women’s Frozen Four took place in Pennsylvania. Further, it was the first time that Mercyhurst hosted an NCAA Division I championship tournament and the first time that a team from College Hockey America served as host. Mercyhurst’s women’s hockey team had another successful year, but ended just shy of participation in the Frozen Four.
• The Mercyhurst Center for Applied Politics (MCAP), which debuted in Fall 2010, announced that it will conduct four statewide public opinion polls during the 2011-2012 academic year. MCAP provides the only independent nonpartisan public opinion polling facility in northwest Pennsylvania.
• Construction is under way on Mercyhurst’s $9 million Academic Engagement Center, which is expected to open in the fall of 2012. A formal groundbreaking was held in June, during which Mercyhurst President Dr. Tom Gamble also announced the successful completion of Phase I of the college’s capital campaign a full year ahead of schedule.
• Mercyhurst has consistently been named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll since its inception in 2006 but in 2011, for the first time, it achieved the recognition “with distinction,” joining only 12 other colleges in the state.
• Mercyhurst dedicated the distinctive R. L. Andrews Center for Perishables Analysis - the only lab of its kind in North America dedicated to analyzing prehistoric and historic perishable artifacts. Dr. James Adovasio, director of the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute, oversees the operations of the “basket lab” and is the driving force behind the charge to elevate the sciences at Mercyhurst. The lab was gutted in the summer of 2010 and renovated at an estimated cost of $290,000.

2010

• Mercyhurst College opened the 2010-2011 academic year with more than 760 new students at the Erie campus, including 670 freshmen and 91 transfer students, hailing from 27 states and 19 foreign countries. Mercyhurst Erie also enrolled 135 new adult undergraduates and 125 graduate students.
• For the fourth consecutive year, Mercyhurst College ranked as a top-tier institution in U.S News & World Report’s annual guidebook highlighting America’s top colleges and universities. Mercyhurst climbed from #85 to #67 in a field of 133 schools comprising the top tier of “Regional Universities-North.”
• Mercyhurst unveiled nearly $1.7 million in science lab construction this year: the renovated R. L. Andrews Center for Perishables Analysis Lab, the processing lab and the office complex of the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute in Zurn Hall; and the new sports medicine labs and classrooms on the lower level of McAuley Hall.
• The Mercyhurst College Institute for Intelligence Studies launched the first Global Intelligence Forum in Dungarvan, Ireland, during summer 2010. The international conference for intelligence professionals will be held each July in Erie’s Sister City of Dungarvan. Erie native Tom Ridge, former governor of Pennsylvania and the first U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, served as keynote speaker for the inaugural event.
• Also Dungarvan-bound last spring were 26 Mercyhurst students and five professors, who established a temporary satellite campus on the Emerald Isle, marking the college’s first overseas term and the beginning of what is expected to be an ongoing study-abroad program.
• Mercyhurst received $100,000 in federal funding to support its progressive program on behalf of students with Asperger Syndrome, operated through the college’s Learning Differences Office. Mercyhurst is among the first schools in the region to specifically address the needs of students with Asperger Syndrome.
• A partnership between Mercyhurst and the Booker T. Washington Center, launched in Fall 2010, provides higher education to an under served population of the Erie community by offering college courses to clients of the Erie neighborhood center on site. Fifteen students comprise the first cohort.
• The Mercyhurst College women’s hockey team, ranked No. 1 in the country through the majority of the 2009-2010 season, ended its 30-3-3 run in the championship game of the Women’s Frozen Four in Minneapolis, losing to Cornell. Meanwhile, Mercyhurst College is preparing to host the 2011 Frozen Four at Erie’s Tullio Arena in March 2011, marking the first time the NCAA Women’s Frozen Four will take place in Pennsylvania. Further, it is the first time that Mercyhurst will host an NCAA Division I championship tournament and the first time that a team from College Hockey America will serve as host.
• Mercyhurst continues to be a leader across academia in sustainability. After an initial wind energy purchase seven years ago at the 10 percent level, increasing to 30 percent in 2008, Mercyhurst increased its wind energy purchase to 100 percent in 2010.
• The BS degree program in athletic training operated through the college’s sports medicine department earned national re-accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE).
• Mercyhurst College is one of only 30 U.S. colleges to receive a 2010 CIC/Walmart College Success Award to help strengthen exemplary programs that support the education of first-generation students. Mercyhurst received $100,000, which it will use to create programming that supports first-generation students at Mercyhurst North East (MNE), a two-year associate degree and opportunity college, as they transfer to Mercyhurst Erie to complete a bachelor’s degree.
• The Mercyhurst Center for Applied Politics (MCAP) debuted in Fall 2010. MCAP provides the only independent nonpartisan public opinion polling facility in northwest Pennsylvania. Its goal is to elevate public discourse on key issues in the region and help link the public with policymakers and community leaders. The center also provides Mercyhurst political science students the opportunity to apply what they learn in the classroom to hands-on, real-world research.
• Dr. Mary Hembrow Snyder, professor of religious studies, was named the first Endowed Chair in Mercy & Catholic Studies. The work of the chair is to direct the new Center for Mercy & Catholic Studies, an innovative effort to enhance both the mission and Catholic identity of Mercyhurst College.

2009

• Mercyhurst College opened the 2009-2010 academic year with more than 800 new students at the Erie campus for only the second time in its 83-year history. The entering class on the Erie campus includes 680 freshmen from 30 states and 15 foreign countries. Of those, 22 percent are from Erie County. In the past four years, Mercyhurst has doubled its complement of Erie County freshmen: 76 in 2006; 104 in 2007; 113 in 2008; and 145 in 2009. Mercyhurst Erie also enrolled 125 transfer students, among them 50 transfers from Mercyhurst North East. Also enrolled at Mercyhurst Erie are 120 adult undergraduates and a record 145 graduate students.

• Mercyhurst College opened its newest building, Frances Warde Hall, this fall. In unveiling the $15 million freshman residence hall, Mercyhurst President Dr. Thomas J. Gamble told the college community: “Warde Hall stands as a sign of the health of this institution. We ended fiscal year 2009 with our best fund-raising year ever; institution-wide we are experiencing one of our best admissions years ever; and our reputation for excellence continues to grow. There is much to be proud of.”

• For the third consecutive year, Mercyhurst College has been ranked as a top tier institution in U.S. News & World Report’s annual guidebook that highlights America’s top colleges and universities.

• Mercyhurst unveiled the new Hirtzel Human Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology Laboratory, a $1.2 million mega-lab at North East that will provide an unprecedented learning opportunity for the college’s science and nursing students while taking its place among the best-equipped and staffed forensic labs in the country.

• Mercyhurst College and the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) formed a partnership that delivers new medical education and clinical experiences for Mercyhurst’s sportsmedicine students while bringing LECOM physicians to campus to provide medical care for all students as well as supply team doctors for the college’s athletic department.

• The National Association of Schools of Dance (NASD) awarded accreditation to the Mercyhurst dance program.

• Mercyhurst and Southern Methodist University launched a combined archaeology field school at the SMU-in-Taos campus in Taos, N.M.

• New majors in graphic design, studio art, and Russian studies offered, along with new minors in digital media, economics and pre-law.

• Long a collegiate front runner in sustainability initiatives, Mercyhurst earned the Young Erie Professionals inaugural Green Business Award for leading the way in advancing Green initiatives on campus and serving as a model of environmental stewardship for the greater Erie community.

• The NCAA National Collegiate Women’s Ice Hockey Committee announced that Mercyhurst College has been selected as the official host of the 2011 NCAA Women’s Hockey Frozen Four. This marks the first time the NCAA Women’s Frozen Four will take place in Pennsylvania. Further, it is the first time that Mercyhurst will host an NCAA Division I championship tournament and the first time that a team from College Hockey America will serve as host.

2008

• Mercyhurst President Dr. Thomas J. Gamble unveiled plans for an unprecedented $32 million in new construction and acquisition projects over the next five years. The projects will add a technology-rich academic building and a 300-bed freshman residence hall to the 70-acre Erie campus. In addition, at Mercyhurst North East, the college has completed construction of a new residence hall and major renovations to its newest acquisition, the First National Bank building at 5999 Station Road, North East.
• Mercyhurst welcomed nearly 1,300 new students at its four campuses - Erie, North East, West and Corry - for the 2008-2009 academic year. Mercyhurst North East achieved an all-time record high enrollment of 1,000 total students. All told, Mercyhurst is home to more than 4,000 students.
• The National Institute of Justice awarded the Applied Forensic Sciences Department nearly $1 million for forensics research, the largest single infusion of grant funds the department has received since its inception six years ago.
• A sweeping new design of the college's communication major - Strategic Communication, New Media and Visual Communication - was unveiled on campus this fall, preparing students to enter the fast-paced industry in three distinct but complementary areas.
• Mercyhurst's Hospitality Management Department earned re-accreditation by the Accreditation Commission for Programs in Hospitality Administration (ACPHA). In addition, the D'Angelo Department of Music was granted full accreditation by the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM).
• Mercyhurst named its first provost: Dr. James Adovasio.
• Mercyhurst increased its wind power consumption from just under 10 percent to 30 percent, a move made possible by a student-enacted Green Energy Fee.
• Mercyhurst opted to participate in the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program (FDL), enabling its students to apply for federal student loans from a single source: the federal government.
• Mercyhurst biology researchers engaged in a landmark study on pollution at Presque Isle State Park, producing scientific evidence linking human waste in creeks to beach water contamination.

2007

• Mercyhurst College is one of more than 40 organizations that will receive a gift from an anonymous donor who pledged $85 million to Erie area non-profit groups. The Anonymous Friend Fund gifts will be administered by the Erie Community Foundation and distributed over a three-year period starting in 2009. The restricted part of the grant will be used to increase the college endowment and the endowed scholarship awards. This generous gift will help Mercyhurst College move toward its goal in the strategic plan of ensuring financial stability.
• Mercyhurst received a second major gift in the form of fossils, casts and other specimens from Michael and Barbara Sincak whose continued generosity, beginning in 2006, inaugurated the college's imposing natural history collection.
• Mercyhurst launches a text message emergency notification system, called e2Campus, to extend the reach of existing emergency notification measures like campuswide e-mails and Web page updates to alert students anywhere, anytime.
• Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, SDB, a 2005 papal candidate widely regarded as a rising star in the Latin American church, pays an exclusive visit to Mercyhurst College, embracing the mission of diversity advanced by the administration of Mercyhurst President Dr. Tom Gamble and celebrating the college's annual Mass of the Holy Spirit.
• Mercyhurst enrolls more students than ever, including the second-largest group of new undergraduates on the Erie campus and the largest group on the North East campus. Total enrollment tops 4,000, including 774 new students at Erie, 500 new students at Mercyhurst North East, 125 new adult students, 100 new graduate students and 20 new students at Mercyhurst West.
• Mercyhurst College introduces its sixth graduate program, offering a Master of Science degree in secondary education with a focus on the teaching of science and math. The program is titled Secondary Education: Pedagogy and Practice. The college also offers master's degree programs in special education, anthropology, administration of justice, organizational leadership and applied intelligence.
• Mercyhurst accepts offer to join the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) as full-time members, making the switch from the Michigan-based Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC), in which the Lakers have competed since 1995. Mercyhurst will begin full membership in the PSAC beginning in the 2008-09 season.
• Mercyhurst makes a voluntary contribution of a half-million dollars to the City of Erie over a three-year period to help the city meet its fiscal needs and relieve some of the strain on areas that impact its citizens most.

• Erie Campus
• North East Campus
• West Campus

• Request Information
• Take a Tour!
• Mercyhurst Bookstore
• Work at Mercyhurst
• People Directory

Mercyhurston