Tag Archives: People

Allow me to introduce you to Joseph P. Matty, executive director of alumni relations and alumni association at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. Many prominent folks from our ethnicity and our community have significant leadership roles at NIU along with Joe Matty. For example, the newest dean at the law school, Jennifer Rosato, is the first ever Italian-American female dean of any American law school. Judge Anthony Iosco serves as president of the Alumni Association Board, with Judge Rod Equi serving as president of the Alumni Association Board of the law school. Anthony D’Andrea, whose career was previously highlighted in …

My wonderful editor, Paul Basile, who recommends subjects for this column from time to time, faxed me an article from an old edition of the Washington Post with the headline “The ‘Last American Tourist’ Flees Beijing.” The article, dated June 13, 1989, identifies this month’s subject, Daniel Nardini, as “the last American tourist,” a dedicated educator and journalist. The article describes Nardini’s misfortune to arrive in Beijing on June 3, 1989, the night tanks and troops smashed into Tiananmen Square to recapture it from student demonstrators, as we vividly recall only too well. Nardini’s adventures and travels to the Far …

Dominic Missimi is retired — officially, unquestionably retired — from Northwestern University, where he spent 30-plus years as a theater professor. Beloved by his students (many of whom went on to Broadway), the founder of the honored as Donald Robertson Endowed Chair in Music Theatre, and the skipper of some 80 university productions, Missimi hung up this hat a year ago. But at 69, Missimi is active to the point of putting men a third his age to shame. He spoke to Fra Noi between frantic paces in Brunswick, Maine, where he was directing a production of “Gypsy.” “Lots of …

As Westchester’s new police chief, John Carpino comes from successful stints helping law enforcement departments in Oak Brook, Worth and Willow Springs. Yet he’s by no means a stereotypical law enforcement officer. How many officers can claim they foiled a robbery while off duty? Or started a successful website long before high-tech was in vogue? Carpino’s done both, and much more. He also teaches in the Criminal Justice Department at Lewis University. But when it comes to Westchester, that’s job one. “I treat Westchester like it’s my neighborhood,” Carpino says. “This is not my department. It’s everyone’s department. We’re shipmates …

For those fortunate enough to grow up in America speaking Italian, it often becomes a mission to share the language with kids in your own backyard. Just ask Cristina Modica, who teaches Italian at Main South High School District 207 in Park Ridge. “My parents were both born in Italy in a small town, Castel San Vincenzo in the region of Molise,” says Modica, whose maiden name is Marzullo. “My mother was 27 when she moved here and didn’t speak English; I learned Italian before English. I’ve always spoken Italian and was raised in the Italian culture. It’s an integral …

When Dolores Pigoni-Miller steps into class at Ridgewood High School in Norridge, she’s not just teaching Italian, but honoring her own bloodline. “My parents, Anna and Romolo Pigoni, came from the same town in northwest Toscana,” she says. “I think Ceserano is one of the most beautiful places in the world. It’s an ancient town that sits at the foot of the Apennines.” And from there, you can see the slopes, not far from the Cinque Terre, where Michelangelo quarried marble for his masterpieces. It’s only fitting, then, that Pigoni-Miller teaches Italian to her 120 students as though it were …

Anna Clara Ionta signs all her emails in Italian, with the words of French socialist leader Jean Jeaurès. Translated into English, the signoff reads:”We do not teach what we want to; actually, we do not teach at all what we know/ Or what we think we know: We can only teach what we are.” It’s a fitting motto for a remarkable woman who has taught Italian at Loyola University Chicago since 1987 — she started as a visiting lecturer sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Readers may recall Ionta as Fra Noi’s Italian editor for three years; she …

When Noreen Moore started the Italian language program at Fenwick High School in Oak Park, she had enough students to fill one classroom — 30, to be precise — taking Italian 1. Just as those first students grew in the language, so did the Fenwick program, which today has two full-time teachers, including Moore, and serves between 130 and 180 students across four grade levels and an advanced placement program. “We’re up and down depending on the year, but we’ve always been over 100 students taking Italian on all four levels,” says Moore. “And just year, they asked me to …

Long before Fra Noi singled out Lisa Sasso as worthy of coverage for her efforts as an Italian teacher at South Middle School in Arlington Heights, Sasso say that Fra Noi played a role in helping her teaching dreams come true. “My father gave me an article he saw in Fra Noi about how the Italian government, along with a non-profit group called Italidea, was giving grants to American schools that started Italian programs,” Sasso recalls. ” I brought the information to my principal and she let me apply for the grant and the next school year, I started the …

In the world of Italian language education, it’s funny how the love of learning gets around. In a previous issue, we featured Noreen Moore, who started the Italian program at Fenwick High School in Oak Park. Prior to that, Moore taught Italian at Mother Guerin High School — where she inspired a student named Tonia Bernardi. Tonia went on to doctorate studies at the University of Wisconsin and then taught Italian at Dominican University — all while raising a family. Today she goes by Tonia Bernardi Triggiano and her adjunct gig, which began in 1995, turned into a full-time position …