Center for Italian Studies
The Center for Italian Studies was created in 1978 by the University of Pennsylvania President Martin Meyerson and by the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Vartan Gregorian, with the endorsement of the Republic of Italy. It was the first such center in the United States.
The Center supports the University of Pennsylvania's faculty and students in developing their research and pedagogy concerning Italian history, language, culture, economy, and society; it also promotes the circulation in Philadelphia, the United States and abroad, of the research on Italian topics developed at Penn; finally, the Center facilitates the communications between the University of Pennsylvania and: the Italian community in Philadelphia, the institutions representing the Italian Republic in the United States, and the centers and cultural organizations that promote Italian-related issues in the US.