Recent Contributions to Italian American Inclusion Through Education

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The image and text above highlights Professor Victor Vari's 40 years of experience teaching at Santa Clara University and his contributions to Italian American inclusion on campus

It can be said that people at Santa Clara University and other schools started to make more of an effort to be inclusive towards Italians and people of different backgrounds. A good example of this can be seen through our own former professor Victor Vari. Professor Vari taught at Santa Clara University for over 60 years and spent much of his time helping students of Italian background feel like an integral part of campus life. In SCU’s 1985 issue of The Santa Clara, they mentioned that “Vari Definitely is a man interested in promoting Italian culture and the University of Santa Clara. [He was highly honored for his work in promoting Italian culture through his teachings of  modern languages]” (The Santa Clara, 1985). After experiencing hardships in his own life and not being able to apply his Italian education prior to his job as a professor, Vari found his time at SCU as an opportunity to create a strong presence of Italian culture which would then help other Italian students find a sense of belonging and better fit into standard school systems and find their place in society. These students’ experiences heavily differed from those eastern colleges because most professors and faculty only encouraged a toxic and discriminatory environment and encouraged existing discrimination to persist, making SCU and professors like Victor Vari seem very progressive in their beliefs of inclusion and acceptance of everyone at the time.

Recent Contributions to Italian American Inclusion Through Education