Katia Passerini, Global Leader in Catholic Higher Education and at Seton Hall University, to Address Class of 2025

Seton Hall University will celebrate its 169th Baccalaureate Commencement ceremony at 9 a.m. on Monday, May 19, 2025, at the Prudential Center, 165 Mulberry Street in Newark, New Jersey. Delivering the commencement keynote address and receiving an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters will be outgoing Provost and Senior Executive Vice President, Katia Passerini, Ph.D. 

In making the announcement, Monsignor Joseph R. Reilly, S.T.L., Ph.D., University President, noted:

Born and raised in Italy, Provost Passerini has blazed a trail of personal and professional achievements on both sides of the Atlantic. She is an exemplar of the Seton Hall experience, having contributed to the success of our University while greatly benefiting from her time in our community. In her five years on campus, Katia has made us a far better University — more inquisitive, more scholarly, more international and more faithful. Her leadership as Interim President advanced Seton Hall in remarkable ways.  

Class of 2025 graduates have likewise discovered, learned, served and matured here. They came to us in the midst of COVID, demonstrating their willingness to "zet forward" in difficult circumstances. Their resilience helped elevate the University to its present eminence. Though Provost Passerini and the Class of 2025 are leaving campus — with Katia assuming the presidency of Gonzaga University and our graduates pursuing meaningful lives and careers around the world — their legacies here are assured.

For more information and updates on Seton Hall’s 169th baccalaureate ceremony, please visit our commencement website.    

Energizing the University through the Pandemic
Passerini has served as Provost and Executive Vice President since her arrival at the University in June 2020, during the height of the pandemic. She played a key role in instituting the HyFlex teaching modality, enabling the University to achieve a safe and healthy in-person academic year in 2020-21. She led a host of major initiatives, including the Seeds of Innovation administrative restructuring plan. Under her leadership, Academic Affairs established several degree programs and partnerships; energized research through Interdisciplinary Academies; and sharpened the University’s focus on international education. 
 
Passerini was an influential voice in the development of the Harvest Our Treasures strategic plan. Under her leadership, Academic Affairs has made substantial progress in achieving the plan’s goals over the last three years.

Advancing a strategic focus on research and academic innovation, her accomplishments included: 

• supporting the development of a host of new undergraduate and graduate programs;
• planning and implementing "Seeds of Innovation," which rebalanced administrative and instructional expenses in favor of instruction;
• hiring more than 60 full-time faculty members over the past two years;
• facilitating the growth of faculty grant applications by nearly 60 percent since 2020-21 and grant receipts by 146 percent over the same period;
• institutionalizing the Academies initiative to foster innovative cross-disciplinary research;
• increasing focus and funding for international programs; and
• reorganizing the Division of Continuing and Professional Studies.

Highly Motivated by Seton Hall’s Catholic Mission
As a noted leader in Catholic education, Passerini was elected to the administrative board of the International Federation of Catholic Universities in 2022, representing all of North America in what has been called the United Nations of Catholic higher education.

Highly motivated by Seton Hall’s Catholic mission, she was the natural choice to lead Seton Hall as interim president in 2023-24. In this interim capacity, rather than merely maintaining day-to-day operations, Passerini elevated the University in significant ways. Her tenure saw the completion of a critical faculty compensation study update and the highly successful Middle States reaccreditation process, among numerous achievements.   

During her tenure at Seton Hall, Passerini strengthened the University’s academic foundation, expanded its global partnerships, drove innovation and deepened its Catholic identity. Her leadership during a time of institutional change brought collaboration, stability, vision and an institution even more prepared to face the future with strength.  

A Proven Leader in Technology and Entrepreneurship 
Prior to Seton Hall, Katia was The Lesley H. and William L. Collins Distinguished Chair & Dean of the Collins College of Professional Studies at St. John's University, where she also held a professor appointment in the Division of Computer Science, Mathematics and Science. During the academic years 2013-16, she served as the Dean for the Albert Dorman Honors College, where she worked closely with the Board of Visitors to launch the third Albert Dorman Honors College strategic plan (2014-2020) while advising, recruiting, and developing new programs and articulations. 

From 2003 to 2013, Passerini was professor and Hurlburt Chair of MIS, Martin Tuchman School of Management, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), where she held a joint appointment in the Information Systems (IS) Department in the Ying Wu College of Computing Sciences.  She taught courses in MIS, knowledge management, project management and IT strategy. She received the NJIT Award for Excellence in Innovative Teaching, the Van Houten Alumni Teaching Excellence Award, and was designated as a Master Teacher. 

Passerini served as a co-PI for grants funded by the National Science Foundation, and jointly by the New Jersey Department of Labor and the Department of Education (DoE). Particularly, she worked on the NSF-ADVANCE grant, CREATIVE-IT grant and a curriculum development project for NJ DoE. 

Her research interests are focused on understanding macro-economic drivers of knowledge management, studying wireless broadband applications and industry trends, and computer-supported learning and education. Passerini has published extensively in refereed journals and proceedings (Communications of the ACM, IEEE IT Professional, Communications of AIS, Electronic Commerce Research, Journal of Knowledge Management, Computers & Education, Journal of Educational Hypermedia and Multimedia, IEEE Internet Computing, Organization Management Journal, International Journal of Management Education, Journal of Small Business Management) and professional journals (Project Management Network, Cutter IT Journal, Cutter Benchmark Review), particularly in the area of computer-mediated learning, IT productivity, and knowledge management. She was nominated five times for best paper awards at regional and national conferences and won once. She serves on editorial boards of various IS and entrepreneurship journals and acted as program and track chair in selected IS conferences.
  
Passerini’s co-authored book on Information Technology for Small Business: Managing the Digital Enterprise (Springer, 2012) discusses how small and medium-sized businesses can leverage today's mobile and "as-a-service" technology to thrive in highly competitive global environments. This book received the 2012 Bright Idea Award, October 2013 by NJPRO Foundation and Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall University.
  
Her professional background includes multi-industry projects at Booz Allen Hamilton (now part of "PriceWaterhouseCoopers") and the World Bank where she focused on information technology projects in Europe, North America, and the South Pacific. Katia is a certified project management professional (PMP®) and worked on various projects in the automotive and telecommunications industries and higher education. Some of her projects included business process management, balanced scorecard definition, business needs analyses and gaps assessment, benchmarking, evaluation of IT investments feasibility and outcomes.
  
She holds degrees in political science (LUISS University, Italy), economics (University of Rome II- Tor Vergata, Italy), MBA and Ph.D. degrees from The George Washington University, and a Certificate in Business Project Management from New York University. She was a Fulbright Student Scholar and Fulbright Administrator Scholar, an Italian National Research Council Fellow (CNR), and received several funded scholarships awards and grants.

For more information on Provost Katia Passerini, please visit the Commencement website. 

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