Approximately 50 university and local community members welcomed new Italian Consul General Piero De Masi to UMass Boston at a reception Feb. 10. The gathering was an opportunity for UMass Boston to strengthen its ties with the Italian Consulate and highlight some of the Italian and Italian-American programs in the works.
"I am so delighted," De Masi said of the reception, his first at a
higher education institution. While he acknowledged he will
concentrate on the traditional task of the Consul General, which is
to care for the needs of the area Italian community, De Masi said he
hopes to meet many people and make many community connections.
"There is no other place in the world where such a concentration of
knowledge and research is every day working toward the progress of
human kind," he said.
De Masi also expressed an interest in continuing the Italian
Consulate's cooperation with the University. Italian Professor
Daniele Benati has been on the UMass Boston faculty for four years.
In addition, Prof. Spencer DiScala has been working with the JFK
Library on an Italian panel discussion planned for March 23. And
other projects are planned.
In her remarks, Chancellor Sherry Penney pointed to UMass Boston's
commitment to diversity and its connection to the local Italian
community. "Our location in Boston, which is surrounded by
neighborhoods with deeply rooted Italian families, enhances that
diversity and our connection with Italy."
Members of the Italian community, representatives from
Italian-American organizations and reporters from local Italian
newspapers attended the reception. De Masi has been formerly
stationed in South Africa, Czechoslovakia, Chile, East Germany and
Namibia. His territory now includes Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.