Katia Passerini, dean of the Albert Dorman Honors College, received a Fulbright International Education Administrators award -- an honor given to the nation's top university administrators.
The Fulbright allowed Passerini to travel to France for two-weeks, during which she met with international leaders in education, government, culture, economics and science.
"It was an honor to receive a Fulbright," said Passerini, who lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. "It will allow NJIT to develop ties with foreign universities and help more of our students to study abroad and for more foreign students to study here."
The Fulbright award helps senior university officials like Passerini create connections with cultural and educational leaders of other countries. Fulbright scholars visit the host country's colleges and programs and network with international colleagues. The scholars return to their universities with an enhanced ability to help students who want to study internationally.
Passerini met with professors and administrators, government officials and leading educational experts at public and private institutions in Europe. To cite just a few examples, she met with officials from the Universite Rennes, the Universite de Strasbourg and the Universite of Paris Pantheon Sorbonne. As part of its Leadership Development Initiative, the Dorman Honors College encourages its students to study and live abroad.
"We want our students to have an international understanding and the best way for them to acquire that is to study abroad," said Passerini.
Passerini is a leading scholar and administrator in U.S. higher education. She has been dean of the Dorman Honors College, which attracts some of the brightest students in the nation, since 2013. At the same time, she is a professor and the Hurlburt Chair of Management Information Systems at NJIT's School of Management and holds a joint appointment in the Information Systems Department. She is a dedicated teacher who has received several awards including the NJIT University Teaching Award for Excellence in Innovative Teaching, the Master Teacher Designation and the Van Houten Alumni Teaching Excellence Award.
###
About NJIT
One of the nation's leading public technological universities, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) is a top-tier research university that prepares students to become leaders in the technology-dependent economy of the 21st century. NJIT's multidisciplinary curriculum and computing-intensive approach to education provide technological proficiency, business acumen and leadership skills. With an enrollment of 11,000 graduate and undergraduate students, NJIT offers small-campus intimacy with the resources of a major public research university. NJIT is a global leader in such fields as solar research, nanotechnology, resilient design, tissue engineering and cyber-security, in addition to others. NJIT ranks fifth among U.S. polytechnic universities in research expenditures, topping $110 million, and is among the top 1 percent of public colleges and universities in return on educational investment, according to Payscale.com.