Serving Saint Peter’s University for five decades, Eileen L. Poiani of Nutley will receive the institute’s honorary alumna award on Friday, May 5. The Saint Peter’s Hearts & Minds Scholarship Celebration will occur on Friday, May 5, at the Mac Mahon Student Center. Poiani, who holds a doctorate degree, is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Douglas Residential College and the Graduate School-New Brunswick at Rutgers University.

In 1967, then-Saint Peter’s College hired Poiani as the first female instructor in its Mathematics Department. The college had turned co-ed for students just a year before; a third of the students were female in 1967, Poiani told the Nutley Sun. When she was hired as a math instructor, Poiani was one of seven women on the college’s faculty, she said.