Ed Weis has only been dean of the business school at Mercy College since mid-May, but he spent much more time than that – 12 years – on Wall Street. He is used to life in the fast lane.
Acting fast to boost Mercy”™s stature, he has decided that the way to get the word out to prospective students about what the school can offer is to bring them to campus and put them to work.
“If you build it they will come, but not if they don”™t know about it,” said Weis, a former managing director in investment banking at Merrill Lynch. “The millennials don”™t trust advertising. We had to give them first-hand experience with what we can provide. Get to the juniors before they do their college applications. So we gave them an all-expenses-paid week.”
That week was spent in the Future Business Leaders Academy, held June 25-28 at Mercy for 20 students who will be high school seniors in the fall. Students took seminars with CEOs, Wall Street executives, nonprofit leaders and entrepreneurs. They took part in interactive exercises — trading games, viral marketing, business plan competitions and team-building events ”“ and also networked with young professionals from top firms.
“We asked the top high schools in the area to nominate five to 10 candidates they thought of as the best leaders in the junior class. We interviewed them, and took the ones we saw had the most potential to succeed in a fast-track business career,” Weis said. The program not only helps the students, but the college. “This gives us a chance to get an upfront look at some potential recruits for our undergraduate business programs. They can decide to apply to the business honors program in the fall.”
That program is the dean”™s other creation. To qualify, a student “has to have great academic credentials and has to interview with me,” said Weis. “I”™ll look for public speaking ability, ambition, a well-rounded person. People who have been very engaged in the high school experience. We will make the same intangible assessment as an employer would.”
Weis said the honors program also will have 20 students. “We”™d like to provide internships to the honors group. Internships in each summer. And also send them abroad, to Shanghai and London. It”™s a global program.”
Weis said Mercy has traditionally been very strong in its education and health care programs. The school wanted to take its business program to the next level, perhaps the level of Pace University, which Weis called “the geographic competitor for Manhattan and Westchester.” Mercy also has a Manhattan campus near Herald Square.
Weis said his plan is to sell the school to people in other cities. “We go to New Jersey, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Boston. My objective is not to steal students from Pace. We want to draw people from the region who want to have the Manhattan experience.”
People from distant cities need housing. Of the 5,000 students attending Mercy in Dobbs Ferry, only 750 live on or near campus, and about half of that number reside in nearby hotels. Mercy plans to add a second dormitory to the campus in the next few years as it tries to become a more residential school.
Another goal of the 41-year old Weis is to start three institutes.
“The first would be a strategic consulting institute. The idea is to train Mercy business students so they can do a consulting project with a Fortune 500 company, under supervision, of course. But just imagine if a student can say ”˜While I was an undergraduate I did real consulting work for XYZ company.”™”
Weis also wants to start an entrepreneurship center and a women”™s leadership institute, to mentor female students at the business school.
