For University people, the best way to preserve and promote Italian American culture/history is is through endowment. We in Chicago have been very fortunate to have Loyola University offer a partnership. We are getting close to our goal.

Our success so far brings to mind that that endowed project of every kind in all parts of the US are the wave of the future----especially as many of the old institutions in our culture diminish in power and wealth as the generations pass. Below is a basic message we in Chicago put out on behalf of the Campaign… Your Past Deserves a Future… Casa Italia and Loyola University Chicago Partner to Preserve Italian American History and Culture • Loyola President and CEO Michael Garazini, SJ, has offered a $500,000 match to create an endowed professorship of Italian American Studies • A steering committee of Italian American leaders has assembled to chart the path to meet this challenge. The group will conduct a multi-level fundraising campaign beginning with a focus on major gifts. • To make a contribution email [email protected] Stephanie Tomakowski, or phone 312-915-7361. Postal address is Loyola University Chicago, 820 N. Michigan, Chicago, IL 60611. Visit Loyola’s Italian American website at LUC.edu/italianamerican/. • We need YOUR support and contributions. Join our committee to make this momentous project a success. Contact Dominic Candeloro at 847.951.9109 or [email protected] Talking Points for Casa Italia/Loyola Italian American Studies Endowed Chair • Life moves fast in 2013. Less time for family dinners, and more distractions than we ever imagined. The Italian American story is slowly being lost, unless we act now. • It will preserve 500 years of the history and culture Italians in America---which is that is at risk of being lost. If trends continue, memory of our ancestors will be relegated to a few sentences in American History textbooks. • Italian Americans are marrying outside their ethnic group at a rate of almost 80% which threatens to diminish the intensity of our descendants’ identity as Italian Americans. This initiative will be a step toward REVERSING diminished identification with Italian American culture. • The very success of Italian American in business and the professions has filled their lives with opportunities to pursue alternative interests at the expense of their identity as Italian Americans. If our history and culture is not kept alive, we will forget where we came from. • In partnership with Casa Italia, this endowed professorship will provide public programming, conferences, exhib-its, film and lecture series to the Italian American community, the campus community at Loyola and to the gen-eral public at Casa Italia. This will strengthen the cultural mission of Casa Italia by linking our library, exhibits, and events to the resources (PR, technology, prestige) of a major university with 15,000 students. • The person in that position will be THE authoritative spokesperson in media, political, and academic circles on Italian American history and culture---permanently be in a position to combat stereotypes and defamation. The professor will be the “go to” person for media and government entities looking for solid information on issues that impact the Italian Americans on the city, state, national and international levels. • This position will offer the opportunity for Loyola Italian American students to learn about their cultural heritage and for all students to learn about the role played by Italians in American history. One day these young people will carry the fight that was so nobly begun by a very small group of dedicated Italian-Americans. • Having this position would bring Italian American studies on par with Latino, African American, Polish, Hebraic, and other ethnic studies programs at universities around the nation. • Loyola and Chicago Italians would join, SUNY Stony Brook (Sen. D’Amato Chair), Seaton Hall University (LaMotta Chair), Hofstra, Queens College, U-Cal Long Beach (Graziadio Chair), and John Carroll University (Bishop Pila Chair) which have established endowed chairs in IA Studies in recent years. We want to produce a stream of bright, intelligent, informed and articulate academic Italian-American Champions. • Giving provides an opportunity to document, honor, celebrate, and popularize OUR STORY and the men and women who made that history. It will be a vibrant memorial to their hard work, perseverance, and success and will bring us the satisfaction that we have done our duty to honor their memory. It is an opportunity to PAY IT FORWARD. • Loyola already has strong offerings in Italian language and literature, European history, the Renaissance, the His-tory of Catholicism, and the Rome Center study abroad program. Adding Italian American History/Culture would provide students with an unparalleled opportunity to master Italian Studies from all angles and Casa Italia will provide college students as a venue for internships, research, and artistic expression. • We have allies in positions of power at Loyola, offering an unprecedented opportunity to increase the Italian pres-ence at this 150 year old institution. If not now, when? If not us, who?