Peter Ascoli

Peter M. Ascoli received a BA from the University of Chicago, a second BA from St. Catherine's College, Oxford, and a PhD from UC Berkeley, all in European History. He also has a Master of Management degree from Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management. From 1971 to 1978, he was an Assistant Professor at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. In the late 1970s, Mr. Ascoli was a consultant to the Educational Testing Service for the Advanced Placement exam in European history. In 1979, Mr. Ascoli moved to Chicago and worked as a fundraiser for a variety of cultural and educational nonprofit organizations, including the University of Chicago, Chicago Opera Theater, Steppenwolf Theater Company, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of a biography of Julius Rosenwald, his grandfather. The book, Julius Rosenwald: The Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced Black Education in the American South was published in 2006 by Indiana University Press. Dr. Ascoli has been teaching at Spertus since 1995.