IT TAKES A VILLAGE... EMISSARIES ENSURE MERCY SPIRIT ANIMATES CAMPUS By Sean Cuneo Since Sister Lisa Mary McCartney frst came to Mercyhurst as a cadet student more than 50 years ago, Mercyhurst has experienced a number of milestones. The frst lay college president. The move to coeducation and the frst class of men. The frst graduate program. McCartney’s retirement in May, however, marked another important frst for Mercyhurst: For the frst time in the institution’s 92-year history, Mercyhurst does not have a Sister of Mercy employed full time on campus. “When I came to Mercyhurst, the president was a Sister, the dean was a Sister, Sisters worked in food service, every residence hall had at least one Sister. It was a diferent world,” McCartney said. With the numbers of priests and women religious declining on college campuses, faith-based institutions increasingly turn to newly established “mission ofcers” to safeguard their founding ideals. In 2008, Mercyhurst joined the ranks, naming McCartney as the frst vice president for mission integration and charging her to assimilate the university’s educational mission, Catholic identity and legacy of the Sisters of Mercy. “I determined that the role of the vice president of mission would be to tend to employees,” she said. “If the employees get the mission, it is they who will pass it on through teaching and daily interactions with students.” In her frst years on the job, a campus-wide survey found that most people did not think Mercyhurst’s mission could continue without the Sisters of Mercy.
“Immediately, I thought that’s a perception we’ve got to change,” she said.
Following a series of discussions with a key group of administrators and faculty—“people who couldn’t say no to me,” she said—the decision was made to establish a voluntary employee Mercy Mission training program, which would become known as the Mercy Emissary Program. Loosely modeled on the Mercy Associate program of the Sisters of Mercy, the program—which is open to employees of all faith backgrounds— consists of a series of monthly gatherings throughout the academic year. The frst semester addresses Mercy while the second focuses on Catholic higher education. The training concludes with a daylong retreat. Alumni President Dr. Melanie Titzel and President Michael Victor present Sister Lisa Mary with the Sister Carolyn Herrmann Award, Mercyhurst’s highest alumni award. Natalie Koons presents a gift to Sister Lisa Mary on behalf of the Class of 2018, which endowed a scholarship in her honor as its Senior Class Gift.
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