Faculty News

The University of Scranton has received a Professional Development Award for $20,000 from the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE). Scranton is one of 43 institutions to receive a total of $889,000 in funding from the Council of Independent Colleges through NetVUE.

Grant funding will be used to support the implementation of the new Ignatian Core Curriculum, a revision of the general education program to be launched in the fall of 2027.

Teresa Grettano, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of English and Theatre and Faculty Senate president, applied for the grant to develop an Ignatian pedagogy workshop for faculty from across the curriculum to design new or revise existing courses.

At the heart of the new curriculum is the Core Capstone, which is intended to guide students nearing the end of their programs toward vocational exploration and discernment as they reflect on their transformation throughout their Catholic, Jesuit education at Scranton.

In August 2025, 13 faculty members from across all three colleges met for two days to discuss Ignatian spirituality and pedagogy, workshop course design and assignments and build a supportive and collaborative community of instructors.

“The real measure of our Jesuit universities lies in who our students become,” Dr. Grettano said, quoting former Jesuit Superior General Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J. “We want students to be aware of and active participants in this transformation process. The Core Capstone is our opportunity to accompany them through reflecting back on their time at Scranton and projecting forward how to bring what they have learned and who they have become here into their future professional, personal and civic lives.”

Dr. Grettano is a national NetVUE Faculty Fellow and was a selected participant in the NetVUE Leading Vocational Exploration on-campus 2024 summer seminar where she received training to "teach the teachers" about vocational education. She will mentor workshop participants through course design and development, the curricular proposal process and course delivery and assessment.

The University values its long-standing relationship with NetVUE. A program of the Council of Independent Colleges, NetVUE is a nationwide network of colleges and universities formed to support and enrich vocational exploration and discernment among undergraduate students. Financial support of NetVUE comes from a combination of membership dues and the generosity of Lilly Endowment, Inc. This is the third NetVUE grant Scranton has received to develop curriculum, totaling over $100,000 to date.

By Marcus Smith '27, Student Correspondent

The University of Scranton works extensively with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections prison system, and one of the University’s professors received an award for his service at the State Correctional Institution at Waymart.

Christopher Haw, Ph.D., director of the University’s Prison Education Program, was recently named SCI Waymart’s 2025 Volunteer of the Year for his work educating incarcerated individuals. While the Prison Education Program teaches many college-level courses at SCI Dallas, Dr. Haw has also arranged, over the last few years, for many faculty members from The University of Scranton to give lectures at SCI Waymart on their various topics of specialty.

Some of these professors have included Carolyn Barry, Ph.D., the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, who lectured on child development and psychology, and Brian Conniff, Ph.D., a professor of English, who taught about literature and poetry.

All of the professors who took part in the program did so voluntarily to help serve undereducated populations.

Dr. Haw will join other volunteers of the year from SCIs for a statewide award ceremony later this fall at the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections headquarters.

During his remarks at Waymart’s award ceremony, he said that he was pleased to proliferate a quote from Saint John of the Cross: “Where you see no love, put love, and you will draw out love.”

Dr. Haw’s work brilliantly reflects the Jesuit ideals of The University of Scranton, being a person for and with others by spreading education widely.

By Marcus Smith '27, Student Correspondent

While The University of Scranton community celebrates the opening of the new Robert S. ʼ68 and Marilyn A. Weiss Hall this semester, the students and faculty of the Psychology Department face a bittersweet farewell to their old facilities in Alumni Memorial Hall (AMH).

John C. Norcross, Ph.D, distinguished professor of psychology, praised the new facility, calling it a “major upgrade for students, faculty and education at The University of Scranton.”

AMH still has a purpose at the University, including serving as the headquarters for Technology Support, although the Psychology Department bid the facility a sentimental goodbye.

“It’s home,” Dr. Norcross, who was the interim chair of the department when it relocated from AMH, said. “It’s like when people return to smaller homes that are a little more modest than what they have now. You look at it and you whistle and say, ‘How do we all fit in here?’ We go back and say, ‘How do we ever do it?’”

According to Dr. Norcross, AMH is where the Psychology Department began to grow.

“Alumni Memorial Hall is where our faculty began to diversify in terms of adding specialties,” Dr. Norcross said.

Not only that, it also produced remarkable students.

“We were still able to regularly get our majors up into the 80th percentile compared to other psychology graduates on the standardized metrics,” he said.

Jill Warker, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology, relocated into Weiss Hall at the beginning of the school year alongside the rest of the Psychology Department. But Dr. Warker still holds fond memories of seeing students daily in AMH.

“We would see students all the time. They would hang out and I regularly interacted with them. We were very cozy,” Dr. Warker said.

At the end of the spring semester of 2025, the Psychology Department held a gathering to say goodbye to its old facilities in AMH. Numerous alumni and retired professors returned to say goodbye and leave messages.

“We said we should have a reception inviting people to record their memories, take some photos and thus we started the memory wall,” Dr. Norcross said.

Dr. Norcross was the first to write on the wall.

“I was told I should be leading the charge,” he said.

The memory wall stands directly across from the stairs on the third floor of AMH where students and faculty wrote on it in colored markers.

“It is really nice when you go up the stairs, you see other people’s experiences of being in AMH and how fond they were of it,” Dr. Warker said.

While most of the messages are sentimental, some of them are humorous, as well, such as one note saying, “I’m NOT leaving. Come arrest me.”

The department left markers out for the rest of the semester, allowing people to add on to the wall.

The building opened in 1960 as the school library, according to records kept by the Weinberg Memorial Library, but later housed the Technology Support Center and Office of Planning and Institutional Effectiveness in addition to the Psychology Department.

AMH remains the home of Technology Support and also contains many offices and meeting spaces. The associate vice president of facilities management, James Caffrey, DBA, said the University is "currently evaluating the important role that Alumni Memorial Hall will play in the future for offices and departments."

Marcus Smith '27, Schuylkill Haven, is an English and theatre double major at Scranton.

Scranton students study abroad to experience personal growth and development, among other reasons, according to the University's Office of Global Education.

Royals who spent time in Europe on faculty-led travel courses to Greece and Germany this past June encountered numerous opportunities to satisfy those goals.

For the third consecutive year, Joan Grossman, Ph.D. and Andrew Venezia, Ph.D., Department of Health and Human Performance, took 12 students on a 10-day study abroad course to Greece, KNES 296 – Sport and Physical Culture in Ancient Greece. This travel course, from June 22 to July 2, explored athletic competition and physical culture in ancient Greece, with trips to: Athens, Marathon, Sparta, Nemia, Thermopylae, Delphi and Olympia.

"Students learned about the beginnings and importance of athletic competition within the Greek society and how athletic competition in ancient Greece has influenced the kinesiology discipline from the perspective of ancient Greek civilization to the modern day," said Dr. Grossman, professor, Department of Health and Human Performance.

The Panathenaic Stadium — the venue for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 — was the first stop of the first full day in Athens for students who studied abroad this past June in the KNES 296 Sport and Physical Culture in Ancient Greece course led by Drs. Joan Grossman and Andrew Venezia. Shown, from left, are: Dr. Venezia, Amelia Kearns '27, Gavin Grogan '27, Roman Cutrufello '27, Elizabeth D'Antonio '27, Christopher Monda '27, Conor Doogan '27, Cole Malone '27, Madison Markiewicz '26, Grace Castellano '27, Julia Kile '27, Anneliese Burg '27, Ariana Sioutopoulos '28 and Dr. Grossman.

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Personal experience inspired Dr. Grossman to begin leading the travel course.

"I had the opportunity to study abroad while a doctoral student at Colorado State University, at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, and it was a transformative experience. During my sabbatical in the fall 2021, part of my work included the creation of this course, as our department did not have a study abroad offering," Dr. Grossman said. "The kinesiology discipline traces its roots to Greece and therefore, this was a perfect fit."

Thanks to Dr. Grossman's "transformative experience," University students can create a few of their own memories of note.

Dr. Grossman described one encounter that resonates with Royals.

"The students have an opportunity to run in the ancient Olympic stadium, which is simply awesome," Dr. Grossman said.

Interested in Greece?
 

The next course offering is planned for June 2026, with an informational session scheduled for Monday, Oct. 6, at 3 p.m., Kane Forum, Leahy Hall. Dr. Grossman encourages students with an interest in a faculty-led study abroad course to Greece to attend. 

Dr. Grossman, shown, joined The University of Scranton faculty in 2010.  She earned her B.S. from King’s College, her M.S. from Colorado State University and her Ph.D. from Colorado State University/Marywood University.

Französischer Dom and Konzerthaus, Berlin Germany

Six students visited Germany this past June in the theology/religions studies (T/RS 396), Christ, Resistance, and Reconciliation course led by Fr. Michael Azar, Ph.D., over an 11-day period.

"The course considers closely the theological roots of and reasons for resistance against unjust government policies, domestic or foreign. The first half of the course is devoted to the relatively few Christians who resisted during the Nazi period. We consider how the theological sources of Christianity (especially the Bible) inspired their resistance at a time when the vast majority simply complied with Nazi policies (or outright supported them)," said Fr. Azar,

"In the second half, we look at modern-day resisters in contemporary Germany, especially Christian institutions that provide church asylum for refugees who are under threat of deportation from the German government. Above all, we consider: What does it mean to learn from your past and to promise to yourself and others, “Never again”? How does one genuinely prevent the past from repeating?"

Fr. Azar explained how he shares this powerful message with students.

"Aside from reading primary sources (for example, anti-Nazi sermons from the WWII period), we devote much of our time to learning from contemporary models of resistance, most especially at a Catholic monastery in Northwest Germany that has become a major center of church asylum. It is striking to see nuns, who live a cloistered life according to the Benedictine Rule, being remarkably active in wider society on behalf of those who need it most."

 

For half of the course, University students and faculty stay at the 13-14^the century St. Scholastica Benedictine Convent in Dinklage, Germany, shown.

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One of the sites the students visit is Kloster Esterwegen Convent, a Catholic convent on the property of the former Esterwegen Concentration Camp. Sr. Makrina Finlay, who co-teaches the course with Fr. Azar, offers insight as to the experience of residing at a convent on the grounds of a former concentration camp.

Sr. Makrina Finlay, shown above at right, co-teaches the course with Fr. Azar. Sr. Finlay offers insight on the experience of residing at a convent on the grounds of a former concentration camp.
Shown below, Sr. Makrina Finlay guides students at City Hall (Rathaus) in Osnabrück, Germany.

"During the second half of the course, we spend a lot of time with Christian leaders who are providing church asylum for refugees as well as with the refugee communities themselves. Our hosts teach us the meaning of learning from one’s past and living out the Christian gospel now." 

Fr. Azar holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Fordham University and an MA in theology from St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary. He is currently writing a book on Orthodox Christian-Jewish relations, while his other scholarly pursuits focus on New Testament studies, especially apocalyptic thought and the "parting of the ways," as well as the effects that contemporary sociopolitical policies have on scholarly understandings of the ancient world.

His research has been previously supported by a CCD Grant from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Biblical Association, and a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Faculty Fellow grant from Fordham University’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center. He is currently a 2024–25 Lady Davis Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (postponed to 2025–26) and continues to serve as a special advisor to the Orthodox Chair of the Orthodox Christian-Jewish dialogue and as a member of its planning committee. He is a priest of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.