Maureen A. Fay, OP, Ph.D

When the Jesuit "University of Detroit" consolidated with the "Mercy College" in 1990, the new president was neither a member of the Society of Jesus nor the Religious Sisters of Mercy. For the past 14 years, the University of Detroit Mercy has been guided by Maureen Fay, OP, Ph.D., a member of the Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Michigan.

After a successful and varied career in teaching and academics, Fay served as the first non-Mercy president of Mercy College from 1983 to 1990. In another first for Fay, when the two schools joined in 1990 she was the first non-Jesuit president of any Jesuit college or university in the country.

Since becoming president of the University of Detroit Mercy in 1990, she has focused her attention on the growth and revitalization of the school, Michigan's largest, most comprehensive Catholic university, with an enrollment of approximately 6,000 students.

A native of Chicago, Fay received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Detroit in 1966 before earning her doctorate from the University of Chicago in social sciences in 1976.

Fay is active in many Detroit area community and civic organizations as well as a number of educational organizations. In March 1996, she was appointed to the Greater Downtown Partnership, Inc., an initiative to spearhead downtown economic revitalization and development.