Mercy College plans to build the Joyce E. Lillis School of Nursing north of downtown on Sixth Avenue. (Rendering: Invision)
By Steve Dinnen
After working nearly 40 years as a nurse and nursing administrator, you can trust Joyce Lillis when she says, “I believe in nursing.” She recently backed up that claim when she and her husband, Terry, donated $2.5 million to Mercy College of Health Sciences to kickstart its $15 million capital campaign. (She’s pictured here at the start of her career and more recently.)
Mercy College plans to use this money to raze a disused building on its downtown campus and replace it with a structure twice as large. The Joyce E. Lillis School of Nursing that will rise up on that site will have long-sought enhancements in equipment and technology as well as a capacity to boost enrollment. The school currently has 870 students earning their bachelor’s or master’s degrees in nursing or training to become paramedics, radiology technicians or physical therapy assistants. Nurses are in critical demand in Iowa, and month after month they are the most sought-after workers in job listings posted by Iowa Workforce Development.
At some point in our lives, “we all will need a nurse,” Mercy College President Adreain Henry said.
The college’s Legacy of Faith Capital Campaign notes that nearly 45% of students are first-generation learners, and 65% of them are independent. A third have children.
The nursing program began in 1899 as an adjunct to Mercy Hospital. Seven students graduated in the first class, in 1901. The student body grew, programs were added, and Mercy College eventually set up its own campus along Sixth Avenue in a former Howard Johnson’s motel. (It was extensively renovated, but some offices still have wash basins and bath tubs.)
An annex to the motel has stood idle since 2018, and it will be torn down to make way for the new facility. But that won’t happen until all the money is in hand.
“We can’t put a shovel in the ground until we have the $15 million,” Henry said, explaining that Mercy College bylaws don’t permit borrowing.
So far, the college’s first-ever capital campaign has raised about 58% toward its goal. The Ruan Family Foundation made a $1.5 million gift, and a private foundation kicked in another $500,000. An additional 36 individuals and companies have donated gifts between $25,000 to $200,000. Henry said he hopes to wrap up fundraising by the end of the year.
Lillis, who served as the director of home health care for MercyOne Home and Health, said she always struggled to find nurses. With the gift from her and her husband, a former chief financial officer at Principal Financial Group Inc., maybe some of that workload will ease for her successors.
