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Benita Weber Vassallo ’74

Paying Forward Career Defining Opportunities

Benita Weber Vassallo ’74 supports the next generation of CCI students through a bequest pledge establishing the Benita Weber Vassallo ’74 and Paul Vassallo Endowed Scholarship Fund.

Drexel University kicked off what Benita Weber Vassallo ’74 refers to as “the most wonderful career I could’ve imagined.” An alumna of the School of Library Science – which has since been incorporated as a part of the College of Computing & Informatics – Benita’s work has spanned several leadership roles in high-profile academic and corporate libraries.

After completing undergraduate studies at Temple University, Benita soon realized that her original career path as a Spanish teacher wasn’t the right fit for her. She found herself working at the Montgomery County Community College library reporting to Marge Davis, a Drexel graduate who highly recommended the University’s library studies program.

Upon arriving at Drexel, Benita was impressed. The University was an early adopter of library automation and online catalogue access. As Benita describes, it was “mind-blowing” to learn all this new technology which would “change the scope of information seeking… It was very clear that this was the wave of the future.”

Due to the unparalleled education she received, Benita knew that she would one day pay it forward. She has determined that a portion of her estate will support scholarships to give other women the same kind of opportunities that she had at Drexel. “In terms of a legacy, it never even occurred to me that it would be anyone other than Drexel. That’s how important Drexel was to me,” says Benita.

While still a student, Benita served as editor for an issue of the Drexel Library Quarterly. Getting the opportunity to do this work was “beyond my expectations” says Benita. In part due to this experience, she was invited to speak at conferences early in her career. Benita reflects, “Just to be thought of as an ‘expert’ on some topic was new to me.” She credits the Drexel Library Quarterly publishing project as helping set her ahead of the competition when she was recruited to lead the serials department at the University of New Mexico. Furthermore, the publication process helped advance her friendship with the late Paul Vassallo – a contributor to the issue whom she would later marry.

After her employment at the University of New Mexico, Benita served as the head of online services at UCLA, helped plan a new library being built at the Albuquerque Academy, and worked in collections at The George Washington University.

In 1990, she was recruited by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). While initially she was “sort of hesitant to make that switch” out of academic libraries, Benita shares that “it was the best decision I ever made in my entire life.” In her role as director of library services at IDB, Benita supported approximately 1,500 researchers in fields ranging from agriculture to women’s health to infrastructure and beyond. Her job involved traveling all over Latin America and the Caribbean, as she established libraries, attended conferences and presented papers. “I felt very fortunate to have had that as the final 15 years of my career,” says Benita.

Benita’s career exceeded the ambitious aspirations that she had during her time as a Drexel student: “I didn’t envision that I would be working in large universities, let alone this international organization.” Benita views her bequest to Drexel as a way to show her appreciation for the education that set her up for success. “I was so grateful to Drexel for launching me into this career – and life – that I had that I wanted to say ‘Thank you, Drexel!’”

Benita hopes that future generations of Drexel students – including those who will one day benefit from her scholarship funding – recognize their incredible potential. “You are capable of doing big things, and making big changes in the world.”

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