Using the EAP is completely voluntary. Mercer employees do not have to go through the EAP to obtain any of the benefits outlined under the Mercer Health Plan. It is simply an additional benefit for the Mercer family. When faced with a personal conflict, it is difficult at times to know where to turn. The Employee Assistance Program can provide the first step to help us resolve or come to terms with the challenges we face.
Counseling can take place in person or by phone.
Counselors are available by phone 24 hours a day. The 1999 Ferrol A. Sams Jr. Distinguished Chair of English was occupied this year by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Louis Simpson. Poems Through Five Decades on Feb. 8. A resident of Setauket, N.Y., Simpson has taught at Columbia University, where he earned a doctorate, as well as at the University of California at Berkeley and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Considered one of the finest contemporary American poets, he is the author of five books of literary criticism and 17 books of original poetry, including At the End of the Open Road, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1963.