By Molly Petrilla
Marissa Muoio ’12/M.A. ’14/Ed.D. ’19 never pictured herself at an all-girls high school. She loved sports, and most of her friends were boys. But the strong softball team at Mount St. Dominic Academy, a girls school in Caldwell, enticed her to at least check things out.
By the end of her initial visit, Muoio was convinced: “This is the place for me.”
And she remains a part of the all-girls experience today. As head of the upper school at Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart in Princeton, Muoio is now on the other side of the desk, working to ensure that current and future generations can have an all-girls Catholic school education like the one she did.
“I think the power of an all-girls space is really helping students find their voice,” she says, “and that’s still so needed in this world.” Whether it’s speaking up in class or trying out a new sport for the first time, Muoio believes her students are more likely to take risks big and small when they’re among only other girls.
It also means that every leadership post — heading up the mock trial team, running model United Nations, serving on student government — is held by a girl. “And in the classroom, every single hand raised and called on is a girl, every conversation is led by a girl,” she adds.
Stuart’s status as a Sacred Heart school allows it to infuse another layer of impact, too, according to Muoio. “Serving girls, we see the rates of anxiety and depression and the pressures that they’re facing,” she says. “Having the spiritual component to lean on — I’ve seen it make a real difference in the lives of students.”
Her own Catholic schooling experience started long before she enrolled at Mount St. Dominic — “I’ve been educated in Catholic schools since I was 3 years old,” she says — and it extended to her university education at Seton Hall.
She came in through the six-year speech pathology program, but ultimately stuck with a bachelor’s degree in elementary and special education. A walk-on for the girls’ softball team, Muoio grew close to Matt Geibel and Amanda DiDonato in the Office of Academic Support Services for Student-Athletes. As her graduation date neared, they encouraged her to apply for a graduate assistantship position in their office.
She spent the next two years in that post, tutoring student-athletes and simultaneously earning a master’s in library media studies. She continued straight into the doctor of education program for K-12 administration while also working at Mount St. Dominic Academy as a library media specialist and then dean of academics. “I had incredible mentors at Seton Hall and I truly loved going to class,” she says.
In her post at Stuart, Muoio often finds herself drawing on the principles of servant-leadership that she absorbed during her decade at Seton Hall. When anyone approaches her with a problem, whether it’s a faculty member, a student or a family, her first instinct is to ask herself, “How can I serve this person best?”
Seton Hall’s motto, Hazard Zet Forward (whatever the peril, ever forward), continues to inspire her as well. “No leader has a smooth path,” she says. “You have to be willing to make changes and difficult decisions. Having the courage to do that is an important piece of leadership, and that’s something that I got from Seton Hall.”
Though she lists academic excellence as a top priority, Muoio says it’s vital to her that Stuart girls also learn the value of serving others. She drives the school’s Meals on Wheels route once a month, taking students into the community to deliver food. “It’s really powerful,” she says. “I think one of our greatest priorities is making sure that kids see outside of themselves and into what their impact can be on the world.”
Four years into her role at Stuart, and after more than a decade working in high schools, Muoio says education is truly “the best career you can have.”
“You will never have greater joy than you do on a day-to-day basis,” she says. “I love what I do.”
Molly Petrilla is a freelance writer based in New Jersey.
