This past summer, St. Joseph’s University, New York (SJNY) awarded Assistant Professor of Psychology Anna Pennisi the University’s S. Mary Florence Burns Award for Teaching Excellence and Impact for 2026. The honor coincided with the University naming Dr. Pennisi the new director of SJNY’s Honors Program on the Brooklyn Campus.
The program provides an academic learning community where high-performing students can challenge themselves intellectually while building relationships with fellow students and faculty mentors.
We recently spoke with Dr. Pennisi about her plans for the program.
Building a Strong Academic Community
A key element of the Honors Program that Dr. Pennisi intends to focus on is its academic community.
“What drew me most,” she said, “is that the Honors Program is where all the things I care about most as a faculty member come together: rigorous teaching, close mentoring, and a genuine community of students who are curious about the world.”
Director of SJNY’s Honors Program on the Brooklyn Campus, Anna Pennisi, Ph.D.
The program offers a broad spectrum of seminars. First-year students, for instance, enroll in specially designed Honors First-Year Seminars, which range from science-oriented classes to courses focused on the arts and literature. What they share is an emphasis on interdisciplinary learning.
“The Honors Program Faculty Committee brings together colleagues from across the disciplines, from art, biology, chemistry, and mathematics to philosophy, English, psychology, and campus ministry,” she said. “Working with them to offer students an interdisciplinary experience that no single department could provide on its own is a real privilege.”
Dr. Pennisi believes that approach can also help students better understand themselves and the world around them.
“As a psychologist, I am fascinated by how students grow, not only in what they know, but in how they think, see themselves and relate to others,” Pennisi said.
Because Honors students come to SJNY from around the world, she added, seminars, the Honors Hub and international study experiences expose students to different cultures and perspectives, helping them become “not only accomplished scholars but true global citizens.”
Creating a Big Impact Through Small Seminars
“What makes the program distinctive is how much it offers in a close-knit setting,” Dr. Pennisi said.
Honors students participate in small, discussion-based seminars, colloquia and workshops created specifically for the Honors community. Because the courses include students from different majors and faculty from different disciplines, they encourage students to consider ideas from multiple perspectives.
“A nursing student and a history major might tackle the same question from completely different angles and learn from each other in the process,” she said.
Those interactions help students develop critical-thinking skills that can serve them long after graduation.
Honors Colloquia offer another opportunity for exploration. Each is a short, three-session course carrying no credit and no grade, allowing students to explore unfamiliar subjects without worrying about their GPA.
“That freedom matters,” Dr. Pennisi said. “Students can explore something completely new out of pure curiosity.”
Developing Research and Presentation Skills
Another priority for Dr. Pennisi is strengthening opportunities for students to develop research and presentation skills.
“My first priority is research and scholarly presentation,” she said.
SJNY Honors student Jawad Zaman ’27 presented at last year’s NRHC conference.
One of the primary ways students develop those skills is through the Honors Thesis, a mentored research experience that evolves throughout their time in the program.
“Mentored research through the Honors Thesis can shape the entire arc of a student’s time with us,” she said.
The process begins with conversations with faculty, develops into a formal partnership with a thesis advisor by the end of junior year and culminates during senior year with presentations at an Honors Thesis Workshop and Honors Symposium.
“Along the way, students learn to ask a question no one has fully answered, to work through setbacks, and to defend their ideas in front of an academic audience,” she said. “That is critical thinking in its purest form, and it is exactly what graduate schools and employers are looking for.”
Dr. Pennisi also wants more students to present their research beyond SJNY, including at the Northeast Regional Honors Council (NRHC) conference and conferences within their own disciplines.
She hopes to bring first-year students to the NRHC conference each year so they can see what other students are accomplishing and begin thinking about their own research interests earlier.
“Their work deserves lasting recognition,” she said, which is why the Honors Thesis is now recorded on a student’s official transcript as a permanent record of their scholarship.
Expanding Learning Beyond the Classroom
Dr. Pennisi also hopes to strengthen the Honors community by creating more opportunities for students to connect with one another and with faculty through common meetings, the new Honors Hub, travel experiences and the new Auxiliary Honors Student Committee, which gives students a greater voice in shaping the program.
“For student–faculty relationships, mentoring is at the heart of everything we do,” she said.
Opportunities also extend beyond the Brooklyn Campus. In recent years, the program has organized weekend seminars in Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Baltimore, Providence, Rhode Island, and Annapolis, Maryland, as well as international experiences in Japan, Italy, France, Taiwan and Greece.
Combined with opportunities to conduct and present research, participate in service and develop professional skills, these experiences are designed to build students’ confidence, intellectual curiosity and leadership skills.
Below are photos from the Honors Program’s trip to Providence, Rhode Island during the 2024-2025 academic year.
Photos taken by Peter Lin, Ph.D.
Learning More About the Honors Program
“Put together, the Honors Program prepares students not just for their first job, but for lives as thoughtful leaders and engaged global citizens,” Dr. Pennisi said.
For students interested in the program, she emphasized that Honors is “about being curious and willing to be challenged.
“Our students come from many majors and from all over the world, and what they share is motivation and a desire to go deeper.”
There is also more than one path into the program. Incoming first-year students are invited through the Office of Admissions, while current students who complete their first year with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher are invited each August to join as sophomores.
To learn more about the program, click here.
