Think about the friendships you’ve made over the years within the Gonzaga community—how many people you’ve met and how many have become lifelong connections. Now, consider those who were only in your life briefly, but left an indelible mark, shaping important perspectives and parts of who you are today. Sometimes the stories of those people remain locked away in our memories and hearts—not today.
Today, I am celebrating a young man who came to Gonzaga University in 1966 from Italy to live in Alliance House as a 17-year-old pre-med student for only a year. Just a single academic year was enough for Giorgio Benussi to leave an impression on his classmate Gary Long, who’d kept Giorgio’s first biology textbook and language translations from his time at Gonzaga.
“He was raised in Udine, Italy, by a single mother as his father died in World War II and the rest of his family had been forced out of Yugoslavia,” explained Gary. He shared Giorgio’s story of success after being an international student in Spokane—his experiences completing his medical training at Johns Hopkins and the CDC in Atlanta, and then his return to Italy where he practiced medicine for four decades.
Gary had been so moved by the experience of his friend and other international students that he and his partner included a provision in their will to establish the Long & Saavedra Global Equity - Alliance for Progress Endowed Scholarship to promote diversity and promote access for international students.
“This scholarship will memorialize Gonzaga’s generous history of international education by the founding of the Alliance House in 1962—named for President John F. Kennedy’s famous Alliance for Progress Program foreign policy initiative to Latin America,” explained Gary. “Our hope is that recipients of the scholarship may be inspired to bring their Gonzaga experience home to their own country and to be agents of positive change.”
Alliance House, the dormitory and program Gary and Rudolph are naming the scholarship after, was part of Gonzaga’s Diamond Jubilee (75th anniversary) celebration in 1961 and originally called “an experiment in foreign relations” to promote cultural understanding among the student body. Aligning with an initiative launched by President John F. Kennedy to improve relations between the United States and Latin America, the building housed 20 foreign students from Western Europe and Latin America with 25 US students. Relying primarily on private investments, the government committee administrating the alliance was disbanded in 1973, but Gonzaga’s commitment to strengthening its international connections continued to grow.
According to our friends in student housing, the Alliance for Progress program planted the seeds that became Gonzaga’s Global Engagement and Internationalism efforts. The dormitory is now used as an all-female residence hall and international students are housed on the top floor of Coughlin Hall.
In sharing Giorgio’s story, Gary hoped to highlight the importance of international education at Gonzaga. He also helped to remind me what one connection—no matter how brief—can do to inspire others.