“We are confident that Dr. Marzo will continue to shape and grow the Stritch School of Medicine,” says Norberto Grzywacz, Ph.D., Loyola University Chicago provost and chief academic officer. “With Jesuit values as part of his moral foundation, Dr. Marzo will be a steward of the relationship between Loyola and our academic medical center partner and will be a leader when facing the challenges and embracing the opportunities that we must approach together.”

A Stritch alumnus and professor, Marzo has served as interim dean since December 2018. He chaired the Head and Neck Surgery Division of the Department of Otolaryngology at Loyola University Health System and held a variety of staff appointments at LUHS. He serves on the LUHS Board of Trustees and is a member of the Integrated Clinical Leadership Team, the executive clinical leadership group of LUHS. He is active in multiple Loyola committees, including the Loyola Clinical Leadership Council, Perioperative Executive Committee and Medical Executive Committee.

Prior to joining the Stritch school staff full time in 1999, he was a clinical assistant professor at Vanderbilt University.

“I look forward to charting a long-term growth path for Stritch, including identifying new funding streams and expanding our philanthropic initiatives to serve Stritch and the broader Loyola University Chicago community,” Marzo says. “As a proud Stritch alum, I am humbled by the opportunity to serve a school that formed me into the physician and person I am today.”

Carla Simonini, the Paul and Ann Rubino endowed associate professor of the Italian American Studies Program at Loyola University Chicago, has announced that three classes will be offered in the fall semester. Simonini will lead a comparative literature class titled “Italian and Italian-American Women Writers,” Pietro Lorenzini will offer a history class titled “Italian Americans in Popular Culture,” and Robert Lombardo will teach an online criminal justice course titled “Organized Crime.” (simonini@LUC.edu.)

On Sept. 2, board members and foundation trustees of the Columbian Club of Chicago presented Thomas Regan, S.J., dean, College of Arts and Sciences, and Arthur Lurigio, Ph.D., senior associate dean for faculty, College of Arts and Sciences of Loyola University Chicago, with a check to complete the club’s $50,000 pledge to support the creation of a Italian American Studies program at Loyola. The Columbian Club’s gift capped a successful $500,000 fundraising initiative to endow a professorship within Loyola’s College of Arts and Sciences to research, preserve and promote the Italian American experience, history and culture.

The Italian American community, in partnership with Loyola University Chicago and Casa Italia, has raised $500,000 for a planned Italian American Studies program at Loyola. The centerpiece will be the hiring of an endowed professor within Loyola’s College of Arts and Sciences to research, preserve and promote the Italian American experience, history and culture.

“The Italian American Studies program will educate students about fundamental cultural differences. They will gain an appreciation for the ways Italian Americans have enriched life in this great country,” according to Dr. Arthur Lurigio, senior associate dean for faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences at Loyola. “Loyola and the Italian American Studies Initiative Committee are deeply grateful to all those who fostered this successful effort.”

In 2012, Father Michael Garanzini, S.J. — Loyola’s former president and current chancellor — committed $500,000 from the University if the community could raise an equal amount by Dec. 31, 2015. Thanks to an anonymous lead donor, as well as the Columbian Club — which gave $50,000 — the goal was met six months early.

Dominic Candeloro, historian at Casa Italia and instructor at Loyola; and Anthony Fornelli, community businessman and philanthropist; as well as a committee of volunteers were instrumental in achieving the goal. “Loyola’s match will create an endowment to support a full-time professor who will promote permanently the study of Italians in America!” says Candeloro.

Click here for details.

Past UNICO National President Tony Fornelli; the Rev. Thomas Regan, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; Past UNICO National President Mike Veselka; local historian Dominic Candeloro; and Art Lurigio, associate dean for faculty at Loyola’s College of Arts and Sciences, celebrate the first installment of UNICO National’s $25,000 pledge toward the fundraising drive to create an endowed chair of Italian American Studies at Loyola University in Chicago. The drive is only $65,000 shy of its $500,000 goal.

http://luc.edu/italianamerican/