2006-Now • Investing in Our Future
Building athletic complexes on both campuses. Developing a fully online campus. Adding new professional and graduate programs. St. Joseph’s College has been busy over the last decade making improvements and getting noticed.
The College was also able to secure its first endowed chair, receive several large government grants to develop and support new academic programs, broaden diversity on both campuses through local and external recruitment efforts and in 2014 welcome its first lay leader, Dr. Jack P. Calareso.
To this day, and into its next century, the call of SJC’s motto: Esse non videri – “To be, not to seem” rings clear and will continue to honor the example set by its alumni and leaders, guide its current faculty and students, and inspire
future generations and the College for decades to come.
Jennifer Piscitelli ’14, M.B.A., M.S. ’16
Weekend College sparked her career
Jennifer Piscitelli came to St. Joseph’s College in 2009 with just $27 in her checking account. Broke, recently separated and temporarily without a place to live, she could not afford the registration fee.
“Life had been good — then, I got broadsided by a divorce. Without realizing what was happening, I found myself leaving my house and everything I knew with just a suitcase,” said Ms. Piscitelli, a project manager at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center. “Most people have their ‘Aha!’ moment. I had a very big ‘Oh no!’ moment.”
Ms. Piscitelli’s inspiration to return to school came in the form of a newspaper ad that pitched SJC Long Island’s Accelerated Weekend College program. Her saving grace came in the form of an admissions director who accepted a $10 down payment toward the College’s registration fee, with the promise that the Bohemia woman would pay the balance by the time classes began.
“Before I knew what was happening, (the admissions director) was registering me for Saturday classes and working out a payment plan,” Ms. Piscitelli said.
One session into her first class, Health Care Delivery Systems, Ms. Piscitelli, knew that St. Joseph’s is where she belonged, she said. Her hard work and dedication paid off and in 2014, Ms. Piscitelli earned a B.S. in Health Administration. In 2016, she secured an M.B.A. and an M.S. in Health Care Management, while earning a 4.0 GPA and graduating cum laude.
“Weekend College at SJC changed the entire direction of my life and career,” Ms. Piscitelli said. “I look back now and I really can’t believe how much SJC has done for me. The faculty and staff who pushed me to never give up, to think beyond the norm, to strive for dreams that seemed impossible; they were my angels.”
– BRIAN HARMON and VALERIE ESPOSITO
This article appeared in the Centennial Edition of St. Joseph’s College Magazine, fall 2016.
