Message from the Dean
Welcome to the Pennoni Honors College at Drexel University.
Since the founding of the Honors Program at Drexel in 1991, Honors has been a vital presence on campus, developing into a self-standing College in 2002. In 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, our long-awaited Honors House, Bentley Hall, was completed. It is an addition to the Bentley student residence, which opened in 2019. Bentley is a meeting place for students across campus and across disciplines, providing the chance for them to enrich each other and become broadly educated through programming and course opportunities.
We thank Gregory and Caroline Bentley, the Pennoni Advisory Board, and Drexel alumni for making this building and its programming possible. We also acknowledge our benefactor, Drexel alumnus and former interim President, C.R. "Chuck" Pennoni, for helping make Honors an unparalleled site of innovation, creativity, and intellectual exchange.
The College sponsors initiatives that serve all Drexel students interested in pursuing excellence. We encompass three units: our Academic Programs unit includes the Honors Program, the Custom-Designed Major, the interdisciplinary problem solving minor, and the theme-based Symposium; our Undergraduate Research and Enrichment Programs offers research through STAR and SuperNova, mentoring through the Aspire Program, and opportunities to prepare and apply for competitive grants and fellowships; and the Marketing & Media unit offers students involvement with a nationally recognized online journal, The Smart Set, and an array of programming connected to our Center for Civil Discourse, including a nationally distributed television talk show, The Civil Discourse. Please check out the links for more information on these units and the events and programs associated with them.
The Pennoni Honors College has a range and depth of offerings unique among Honors Colleges in the country. Involvement with the College helps students become the best they can be: broadly educated, socially engaged, and culturally and intellectually fulfilled.
Paula Marantz Cohen
Dean
Pennoni Honors College
Drexel Distinguished Professor of English
Published Works by Dean Paula Marantz Cohen
- To Converse Well | Aeon | July 13, 2023
- The Lost Art of Academic Conversation | The Chronicle of Higher Education | March 14, 2023
- The Status of the Book in the Age of Digital Media: A Trip to the New York Antiquarian Book Fair | The Smart Set | June 27, 2022
- Books and Bias: Rediscovering the Writing and Ideologies in Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe Novels | The Gazette: The Journal of the Wolfe Pack, pp. 3-10 | Spring 2022
- Injured Merit | The American Scholar | January 28, 2021
- Austen and Astaire: A Case Study in Analogy Criticism | The Routledge Companion to Jane Austen | Routledge | 2021
- Books and Bias: Rediscovering the Writing and Ideologies in Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe Novels | The Smart Set | May 24, 2021
- The Seminar Course Can Save Civility | The Wall Street Journal | December 1, 2019 [PDF]
- Arthur Miller's Shame | The Times Literary Supplement | May 17, 2019
- The Divine Artistic Hand in My Late Mother's Beauty | The Wall Street Journal | May 10, 2019 [PDF]
- What Othello Can Teach Us All | The Wall Street Journal | April 4, 2019 [PDF]
- This Side of Paradise | The American Scholar | December 3, 2018
- Shakespeare's Uncomfortable Message for Baby Boomers | The Wall Street Journal | October 26, 2018 [DOCX]
- Don't Race Through a Great Book | The American Scholar | April 11, 2016
- Commentary: Prepare Students for Diverse World that Awaits | The Philadelphia Inquirer | April 4, 2016
- A Course of Revelations | The Philadelphia Inquirer | January 11, 2016
- The Humanities Need a Course Correction | The Wall Street Journal | October 9, 2015
- College Honors Programs in Various Forms | The New York Times | August 24, 2015
- The Complete Class Notes | The American Scholar | 2011-2014
- What I've Learned in the Classroom | The Chronicle of Higher Education | July 22, 2013
- Creative Plagiarism | The Chronicle of Higher Education | October 22, 2012
- Jack the Ripper's Interdisciplinary Rap Sheet | The Chronicle of Higher Education | September 4, 2011
- The Making of World-Class Universities, of the Chinese Variety | The Chronicle of Higher Education | February 17, 2011
- Shylock, My Students, and Me | The American Scholar | December 1, 2009
Additional Media with Dean Paula Marantz Cohen