Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y., announced Friday that it would merge with Fordham University over the next 18 months. Citing the financial difficulties of running a small institution, Marymount’s president, Anne Slattery, said the move represented the best hope for the college’s future.
Once the consolidation is complete, by July 2002, Marymount will become a third branch of the Fordham campus. Under the agreement completed on Thursday, Marymount will continue as a women’s college, but will be known as the Marymount campus of Fordham University and will be managed by Fordham.
Faculty members at Marymount will have their current contract honored until it expires, in August 2003.
“I really believe what we’ve created here is the new paradigm for how small, liberal-arts colleges can continue by partnering with large universities that have more resources, such as Fordham,” Ms. Slattery, a Marymount graduate, said Friday. She will step down as president on January 15 and will help with the transition. The Rev. Joseph A. O’Hare, president of Fordham, will become president of Marymount College.
Marymount has approximately 900 students, and offers bachelor’s and associate degrees. Its annual budget is roughly $20-million. Fordham has 6,000 undergraduate and 8,000 graduate students within 10 undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools. Its annual expenditures are about $260-million.
Ms. Slattery said the merger would benefit both institutions. Marymount students will still be able to receive a single-sex, liberal-arts education at the suburban campus, about a 30-minute drive from New York City, while taking advantage of Fordham’s programs. A student could spend a semester at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, in the heart of Manhattan, for example, or at the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx.
Fordham will benefit, she said, by adding a suburban campus to the university. She also noted that Fordham, like Marymount, is a Roman Catholic institution and is committed to preserving Marymount’s religious traditions.
Fordham already has a presence on Marymount’s campus. For 20 years, it has leased space from the college to offer graduate courses in education, business administration, and social services. In a statement released Friday, Father O’Hare said the merger would enable the university to expand the graduate programs on its Tarrytown campus and develop stronger ties to Marymount’s undergraduate programs.
Ms. Slattery broke the news to faculty members during an emergency meeting Thursday night. Students were notified Friday morning, and officials from both Marymount and Fordham met with people Friday to answer questions.
Virginia T. Kaiser, an associate professor of social work at Marymount, said faculty members took the news relatively well, and applauded Ms. Slattery after she spoke. “The faculty in general feel a little nostalgic, but I think they feel very optimistic and happy about the future,” Ms. Kaiser said. “Fordham is a very reputable school and the contract is very well written by our president.”
Michael R. Dilthey, chairman of the music department and a member of the rank and tenure committee, said faculty members were initially upset to learn that Fordham would not guarantee their tenure beyond the length of their current union contract.
Still, he said, they recognize that Fordham’s tenure system is quite different. For one, Marymount faculty members are unionized and Fordham’s are not. Marymount faculty members are affiliated with the American Association of University Professors. “In the logical moment we could not blame Fordham for wanting to do that,” Mr. Dilthey said. Still, he added, faculty members are eager to know how they will be evaluated in the future.
Though surprised by the news, faculty members knew that money was a constant worry for Marymount. Rumors of buyouts, talk of admitting men, and even the threat of closure had been swirling around campus for months. The fact that Marymount will retain its identity, and that the merger is with Fordham, convinced most faculty members that this is a good move, Ms. Kaiser and Mr. Dilthey said.
Mr. Dilthey, who is also chair of the curriculum committee, said faculty members now wonder how Marymount’s academic programs will change, and need to hear more from Fordham on the issue. “We’d like some more information from them in the near future to find comfort in this anxious time,” he said.
Father O’Hare could not be reached for comment over the weekend.
Student reaction has been fairly upbeat. Ms. Kaiser said the social-work students she’s talked to seemed excited about the merger, particularly since many of them already take advantage of lectures and seminars Fordham offers on its Tarrytown campus.
Ms. Slattery, who became president in 1999 after overseeing the creation of a long-term strategic plan as a member of Marymount’s Board of Trustees, said she and Father O’Hare first began talking about a merger last year. The conversations became more serious this past spring. Closure was never a serious threat, she said, but she didn’t want to see Marymount limp into the future.
“You can always figure out how to survive,” she said. “The question is, Will you succeed?”