This story appeared in the Fall 2021 Letters & Science magazine.
Even before they met at UW-Madison and decided to spend their lives together, Rob Buono (BA, Political Science/International Relations, ’86) and Liz Cicchelli (BA, English, ’91) understood the value and importance of social justice and education.
Buono’s mother was a well-known early education specialist who co-founded a popular preschool on a farm in Minnesota. Cicchelli’s family includes several educators, including her sister, who founded a for-profit school in Chicago.
“If you want to live in a just and fair world, you need to be healthy and you need to be educated,” says Buono, a member of the College of Letters & Science Board of Visitors. “The idea of access to these things as a basic social obligation is something Liz and I think a lot about.”
That’s a big part of what drove the couple to donate and establish a new faculty fellowship fund in the College of Letters & Science. Buono and Cicchelli asked that their fund be held at the College level rather than directed to a specific department, so that funds could be awarded to faculty across different fields of study each year. The fund’s focus is to support faculty research in social justice, including areas such as global public health, healthcare delivery systems, human rights and investigative journalism.
The first recipient will be Lori Kido Lopez, Professor of Communication Arts and Director of the Asian American Studies Program, whose research includes topics such as the ways racial minorities are using digital platforms for community organizing and advocacy. More recently, Lopez helped research and produce the #AtlantaSyllabus, an extensive list of resources designed to help members of the public combat anti-Asian hate and spark discussion about the Asian American experience.
“You have to give back to your community,” Cicchelli says. “Others are struggling and don’t have a voice—you need to take that responsibility.”
Buono and Cicchelli have long been involved with international organizations like Human Rights Watch, where Cicchelli has served in multiple administrative roles with the group’s Chicago chapter, as well as having been a member of the Board of Trustees for Partners In Health and a founding member of the Women’s Alliance for Partners in Health in Chicago.
Buono and Cicchelli are in a unique position to understand social justice issues from both a rural and an urban perspective. The child of an Italian father who came to America in the 1960s, Buono owns Henry Street Partners, a Chicago-based real estate development company. He and Liz also own and operate Granor Farm, a 400-acre organic grain and vegetable farm located in Three Oaks, Michigan, near the shores of Lake Michigan. The farm offers programming and summer camps to youth in the surrounding communities.
“The farm is based on the idea of educating people on where food comes from, and the amount of work and energy that goes into growing it,” Cicchelli explains.
Buono, meanwhile, has long been an integral part of the UW-Madison alumni and donor community (and daughter Eleanor is a UW-Madison freshman). He describes his four years as an undergraduate here as life-changing.
“And that’s not intended to be a dramatic statement,” he says. “L&S was instrumental in helping me develop critical thinking skills that I continue to benefit from today.”
