Remembering Trustee Larry Salameno

With his wife, fellow trustee Theresa (both above, center), Salameno founded a scholarship program for students with need. The College gave them both honorary Doctorates of Humanities in 2008. Read their citation below:

Honorary Degree Citation

History will look kindly on the spirit of generosity and good will that emanates from each of you and from the remarkable marriage and family you have built. While you are each accomplished in your own spheres—the world of asset management for Lawrence and of catering management for Theresa—it is your partnership that has proven to be a most powerful force for promoting education, civic engagement, and spiritual growth.

Indeed, your commitment to education—and particularly to educational values that accord with Stonehill’s own—seems to know no bounds. You both give generously of your time to a range of non-profit organizations, and the governing boards of two colleges, two schools, a hospital, a hospital auxiliary, and an educational conflict resolution program are the better for the wisdom you bring them. As one of those organizations, Stonehill College can speak from the heart about the difference you have made on our campus.

You founded a scholarship program for students with need. You support the HOPE trips—intensive, community service alternatives over Spring Break. And your enthusiasm for the study of history led you to establish together the Lawrence and Theresa Salameno Chair in History at Stonehill in 2006—the first endowed chair in the College’s history. You also sponsor the Salameno Lecture Series, which brings renowned historians to Stonehill each semester as guest speakers. Indeed your own passion for lifelong learning has expanded the ways Stonehill students fall in love with history, and your legacy will surely extend through generations of Stonehill students to come.

Your educational ideals also stretch beyond the traditional classroom to include entities such as Colonial Williamsburg, where you endowed the position of the Director of Educational Program Development and provided significant support for educational outreach, especially to high school students.

You became acquainted with Stonehill when your daughter enrolled in 2001, and, as you tell the story yourselves: she left—transferring to another college—but you stayed, with Lawrence joining our Board of Trustees in 2002 and Theresa in 2006.

For your enduring commitment to civic responsibility, for your capacious educational sensibilities, and for the extraordinary academic enrichment that your “staying power” has brought to our faculty and our curriculum, Stonehill College is proud to confer upon you, Lawrence and Theresa Salameno, honoris causa, the degree of Doctor of Humanities.