Remarkable

LSU College of the Coast & Environment Dean Christopher D’Elia and his wife, Jennifer, are dedicated to enhancing education, music and the environment. Their leadership gifts of an endowed professorship for future deans of the college and an endowed student scholarship in the LSU School of Music honor their late son, Wake; enable Dean D’Elia’s successors to continue their research; empower students to complete their musical education; and set a powerful precedent for the university’s faculty and staff to contribute what they can to the areas they are passionate about, too.

Wake was named after his great grandfather—a decision that the D’Elias joke a sleep-deprived Jenny made independently. “They wouldn’t let her go to sleep unless she named the baby. She said, ‘Well, we’ll call him Tallmadge Wakeman D’Elia,’” the dean remembered with a smile. “I got back to the hospital the next day, and I said, ‘You said what is the name?!’ We’d had discussions that had all kinds of other names, and she just chose that one because she was tired from 23 hours of labor and she loved my grandfather, who had died the month before.”

Wake became a recognized photographer and videographer, even posthumously receiving a New York Press Club award for his last project, a documentary titled “The Making of a Maestro: From Castelfranco To Carnegie Hall.” Working with his cousin to chronicle the life of Sir Antonio Pappano, the English-Italian music director of the Royal Opera House, the film put Wake’s degrees from the University of Albany SUNY in mass communication and history to use. Wake loved any activity on skates (both roller and ice!) and traveling, particularly to Italy with his wife.

“He was a remarkable guy with lots of friends,” Dean D’Elia shared. “He just was a magnet for other people, kind of a ringleader. He was a lot of fun to talk to and argue with—he was always good at arguing!”

His tragic, accidental death in 2018 shook his parents and the many people he met throughout the U.S. and the world. As the D’Elias grieved and reflected on the 38 years they enjoyed with Wake, they also made a pivotal decision to make planned gifts at four universities. With 25 years of “fulfilling” and “eye-opening” work in fundraising for nonprofit organizations in science, medicine and the arts, spending the majority of her career as a director of development at the American Chemical Society in Washington, D.C., Jenny too knows firsthand that philanthropic dollars are, as the dean puts it, “the lifeblood” of excellence. They believe that research sparks innovation, and that finances are often a stumbling block for students to obtain a college education. Dean D’Elia says that the beauty of planned giving is that he and Jenny won’t be around to miss the money.

“We’re now in an age when the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in human history is occurring, so there’s a huge opportunity for this to happen, and make a huge impact as well,” he said. Ten years ago, Dean D’Elia, who discovered his lifelong interest in marine life through his grandparents’ beach cottage along the Long Island Sound, was invited to interview at LSU and became intrigued by the university’s ambitions to play a central role in coastal studies and restoration efforts.

After only a year in Louisiana, Dean D’Elia was faced with “the most incredible epic” of his life: the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which required his constant attention to address pressing questions and requests about the event’s repercussions on the Gulf of Mexico and potential solutions. Since then, the School of the Coast & Environment has become the College of the Coast & Environment (CC&E), growing the undergraduate program 540 percent and becoming a hub for Tigers to gain hands-on experiences in an area of global importance. Dean D’Elia believes that CC&E is “the place to be” for environmental science.

“We wrote the book early on in delta studies, wetland studies, coastal oceanography, and more. It’s a great honor to be able to serve as dean of this wonderful college,” he said. “It’s critical for a state university like ours to be really engaged in and work with the community. My goal is to reach out and partner with as many entities in this area and state as possible. If we’re going to be successful, we all have to work together and try to pursue a common agenda. For us, the coastal imperative is huge; that’s where we can be real leaders.”

The gifts to the College of Music & Dramatic Arts are rooted in Dean D’Elia and Wake’s shared love for music. The dean was exposed to classical music at a young age when he and his mother attended Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, “The Pirates of Penzance.” He now attends the College of Music & Dramatic Arts’ symphonic performances, and he and Jenny also appreciate the connection that the fine arts have to mathematics and science, enriching both students’ quality of life and technical skills. With three guitars and an extensive collection of music equipment, Wake enjoyed being creative and making music.

“We know that his name and our love for him will be there until the day we die. But because he died so young, we would like other people to know his name, and know that he’s made an impact that he didn’t live long enough to make happen himself,” Jenny said, adding, “It is a healing process, but it made us happy to do something positive that came out of his death.”

To learn how you can support your passions or honor a loved one with a planned gift to the LSU Foundation, please contact Krista Allen Raney at kallen@lsufoundation.org or 225-578-4518.