William Joseph Merriman

Bill Merriman, lifelong advocate for access and opportunity in the field of education, passed away on Sunday, September 21, 2025, in White Plains, New York. He was 77. A beloved husband, father, friend, teacher, and colleague, he was a kind and generous member of his many communities and will be missed by all.

As part of the Disability Rights Movement, Bill began work in the 1970s to improve education and sport for people with disabilities. He first worked in camp and school settings before entering academia, where he would find a professional home at his alma mater Manhattan University. There he rose to become full professor and then Dean of the School of Education and Health, contributing to university life for over 35 years.

At the national level, he served as a consultant to the Department of Education to review special education teacher training grant proposals and from 1989 to 1996 directed two federal grants to increase training for adapted physical education teachers. The American Council on Exercise established a scholarship in his name at Manhattan University for students in health and fitness.

In his home state of New York, he worked to expand physical education, extracurricular enrichment, and vocational training for people with disabilities. He advised both the New York State Education Department and several school systems, guided by a belief in the right to play and physical activity for all. From 1987 to 2004 he directed the award-winning Project Champ, a regional after-school rehabilitation program for children with disabilities, and secured New York City and state grants for its success. At Manhattan University he also co-created the weekly Saturday Program of Recreation and Teaching and stewarded the annual Manhattan University Games for twenty years.

After moving into an administrative role as Dean, Bill took on the broad goal to understand and better serve the needs of the newest generations of students: multicultural, globally connected, and living in the digital age. Part of this process included a deepened study of Catholic pedagogy in the tradition of Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, the founder of the Christian Brothers, to train future educators in the Lasallian principles of respect for all persons, concern for social justice, and commitment to inclusive community.

Finally, Bill forged global connections through group travel to educational institutions across the world. He led over ten trips for School of Education students to countries such as Sri Lanka, China, Namibia, Palestine, Turkey, and Ireland. Beyond Manhattan, he was appointed a board member for the Syrian and Iraqi Student Project to create greater educational opportunities for college-age refugees. And yet, even with a full passport book, one of Bill’s favorite meals was a large slice of pizza at Broadway Joe’s in the Bronx.

William Joseph Merriman was born on August 28, 1948 in New York City, the youngest of five children of Christine (Larsen) and John Merriman. Both parents had emigrated from Ireland and met in New York, where his mother was a domestic worker and father a store clerk. His father died weeks after his birth, and Bill was lovingly raised by his mother and older siblings Elizabeth and John in the diverse northern Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights.

He earned a Regent Scholarship and a track and field scholarship to Manhattan University (then Manhattan College) in the Bronx, where he began in engineering, left for a year of service in the Navy, and returned to complete his degree in 1973 in physical education. He then completed a master’s degree at Pennsylvania State University and in 1984 earned his PhD in special education and physical education from New York University.

Bill held several faculty positions in New York and Minnesota before landing at Manhattan University in 1987 in the department of physical education and human performance. He advanced through the ranks to full professor, became chair, and then in 1997 was appointed Dean of the School of Education and Health, serving for 19 years. Under his leadership the teacher education programs achieved their first national accreditation. In 2016 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in pedagogy from Manhattan for his outstanding accomplishments and contributions. That same year he retired from the deanship and returned to the faculty until his retirement in 2023. Over his career, Bill co-authored three books and wrote over thirty articles and chapters in the fields of education, pedagogy and health and was elected to the New York Academy of Public Education.

In his roles as Chair and then Dean, Bill was described as a “players coach” who would fiercely advocate for faculty member advancement. He stewarded opportunities for presentations and publication and created an atmosphere of trust and joyful collaboration. He was equally a mentoring presence for generations of students, who were inspired by their teacher in the classroom and continued to seek his counsel years and often decades after graduation. While he was honored with the university’s Distinguished Educator Award in 2001, he took the greatest pride in seeing former students excelling and enjoying their careers in the service of others.

The kind and generous spirit Bill displayed at Manhattan University was also an animating force in his personal life. He loved nothing more than to spend time with friends or family, exploring the world together through travel, playing or watching sports, hiking in nature, cruising city sidewalks, frequenting museums, or simply enjoying a meal and conversation. Those beloved by him would regularly receive envelopes with clippings of articles based on their passions, demonstrating how much Bill thought and cared about each person in his life. Gentle and humble, he resonated compassion for all of humanity.

Bill met his wife Christine through an enduring friendship with her brother and his roommate at Penn State, Duncan Obee. The couple first corresponded through long distance letters between Ohio and New York and married in 1979. They supported each other in life with love and laughter and raised three children together. Bill was a loving and ever supportive parent by sharing his intellectual curiosity, cultivating his children’s moral courage, and guiding them with an abundant and goofy sense of humor. For countless Sundays he would wake up early to prepare banana pancakes, just one of many small acts of love that he showered onto his family. And most recently Bill was delighted to welcome his two granddaughters into the world, starting new traditions of Sunday breakfasts and playtime.

Bill lived with a quiet gratitude for each day, pursuing simple joys in reading, listening to soul music, going for walks in nature, and enjoying a cup of Irish tea with milk and sugar. Ever the bibliophile, he amassed small book collections on New York City and Irish history and remained a constant student of the world. A lifelong Catholic, he sought meaning and grace through his faith but also pursued insights from multiple religious traditions to create a better world. With all his honors as a scholar and educator, Bill will be most remembered for his compassion and selfless generosity towards everyone he met.

William was preceded in death by his parents, Christine and John, and his siblings Elizabeth, John, Robert, and Michael.

He is survived by his wife, Christine (neé Obee), and their children Katherine (Jacob), Brian (Huifang), and James as well as his granddaughters, Yirou and Yian.

In lieu of flowers, please donate in his memory to the LaSalle Foundation which works to create thriving educational institutions for students across the globe.