Sharing the Fruits of Hard Work with a Scholarship

When Joseph DiPietro graduated from UConn in 1955, there were about 8,000 undergraduates in Storrs, then a very rural community with lots of rolling hills.

In September, when DiPietro returned to UConn for the first time since graduation, he was astonished by the number of buildings on campus and by the 17,000 undergraduates in attendance.

“We think the campus looks great,” said DiPietro, who visited the Storrs campus with his wife, Lori, to meet Gabriel Bachinelo ’16, the first recipient of the scholarship fund they established.

“It’s exciting to provide a scholarship,” said DiPietro after meeting and speaking with Bachinelo, an accounting major in the School of Business. “Gabe is a great choice for our first award. We anticipate great things from him.” DiPietro said he is pleased that his scholarship supports a student who, like him, is the child of immigrants and a first-generation college student. DiPietro’s parents came to the U.S. from Italy, while Gabe’s family came to the U.S. from Colombia.

“I started out in the School of Engineering, not breaking any records,” says DiPietro, who switched to business in his junior year and became an honor student. He went on to a long and successful career with Pfizer.

“It’s an honor and a privilege to fund a scholarship and show how my years of hard work have paid off,” said DiPietro.