Summer 2001: Report on the Program's activities from the Director, Antonella D. Olson The Rome Study Program gives students of all majors the opportunity to spend six weeks in Rome, Italy, and to visit some of the most beautiful Italian sites on weekends. Some field trips are included in the cost of the program and others are optional. Italian families host the students, providing an in-depth experience of Italian life and language. Students can earn three or six credit hours.

During the academic year preceding departure for Rome, the program offers seven meetings and a final orientation session on the U.T.-Austin campus.

Program Director: Antonella D. Olson Assistant on UT campus: Carlos Capra Assistant in Rome: Robert Olson

Thirty students from the University of Texas at Austin enrolled in this year's program. Professor Daniela Bini taught with me. Students spent their class time (1 and a half hours for each class) from Monday through Thursday in the Palazzo Antici-Mattei. The cost of the program was $2,600.00. This fee did not cover air fare, UT tuition and fees, or textbooks. It covered everything else: housing and three meals per day, transportation both ways between the airport and Rome, bus tickets, a monthly bus card, a guided visit to Tivoli, admission to the Museum of the Galleria Borghese and numerous guided tours in Rome. A total of $7,200.00 was given in scholarships to deserving students.

ITL 312K: Second-Year Italian Language and Culture I. 3 credit hours, taught by Antonella Olson. The focus of this course is on a review of first-year grammar and a vigorous expansion of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. As in the past, its curriculum was very similar to that of ITL 312K as offered on the UT campus during the long semester, so that students are able to go on in the fall to ITL 312L (the fourth-semester course) with the same preparation.

The city of Rome and Italy are a living laboratory for this course in which students can improve their language skills, expand their vocabulary and immerse themselves completely in Italian culture and the Italian environment. At the end of the course, the students performed one of the readings they had studied in class, a short story by Stefano Benni. The host families attended and were pleased to see their performance.

ITL 365: Contemporary Italian Culture. 3 credit hours, taught by Daniela Bini and Antonella Olson. This is an upper-division course taught in Italian with focus on major Italian cultural movements of the past three decades. Through selected works by writers of prose fiction, playwrights, filmmakers and cultural critics, the course examined Italy's recent past to assess the challenges it faces at the beginning of a new millennium.

Students read works of authors such as Elsa Morante, Alberto Moravia, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Italo Calvino. They also studied two short plays by Dacia Maraini and Dario Fo. The performance of these challenging pieces was impressive and the students' commitment remarkable. The host families--our audience--were enthusiastic in their reception.

ITC 349: Rome, Eternal City. Myths and Realities. 3 credit hours, taught by Daniela Bini. This is an interdisciplinary course taught in English with focus on the powerful myths of Rome--political, religious, cultural--from antiquity to the present. An analysis of historical, literary and cinematic works was facilitated by the artistic and architectural resources of the city itself. The course was enhanced by visits to the Forum, the Coliseum, the Vatican Museums, the Galleria Borghese and other sites. Students appreciated these field trips immensely and learned to look around themselves to discover and recognize the many treasures of Rome.

The Palazzo Antici-Mattei has been used for classroom space since the summer of 1999. The Centro Studi Americani (CSA) is one of the major Italian libraries for American studies and is situated in this majestic seventeenth-centuy palace. The CSA provided--and will provide again next year--a spacious, elegant and distinctive environment for our students. The CSA's director and staff were most kind to the program's participants.

included in the program's cost:

1) One orientation session in Rome.

2) A guided visit to the Vatican City, the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel and St Peter's Basilica.

3) A guided visit to the Museum of the Galleria Borghese.

4) A visit to an Italian high school.

5) A guided visit to the studios of Cinecittà.

6) A guided visit to Tivoli (Villa Adriana, Villa D'Este).

optional field trips organized and supervised by me and the Assistant. Most students participate:

1) A three-day visit to Genoa, where a guide pointed out the treasures of this city on the first and third days. The second day was spent visiting the resort towns of Camogli, San Fruttuoso, and others.

2) A three-day visit to Venice, where the students enjoyed, among many other things, the international modern art exhibitions of the Biennale, the Accademia with its masterpieces by the major painters of the Veneto, the works of major modern artists and a temporary exhibit of paintings by the futurist Severini at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum.

3) A three-day trip to the Amalfi Coast with a guided tour of Pompeii, a day on the beach in Positano, and a guided tour of Naples.

4) A three-day visit to Circeo, where students enjoyed the southern Italian sun, beaches and sea while preparing for their final examinations.

Barbara Myers, Assistant Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, spent one week in Rome visiting the program. She attended and enjoyed all the scheduled events during the program's first week and was pleased to observe the students' enthusiastic participation. Every year since 1997 Ms Myers has provided, through the College of Liberal Arts, the sum of $4,000.00 in scholarships for deserving students participating in the Rome Study Program.

Professor Joseph Carter from the Department of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin shared his incredible knowledge with the students, who were fascinated by the two lectures he offered on the Roman Forum, the Campidoglio (Capitoline), the Coliseum and the Museo Nazionale. Professor Carter was most generous with his time and took the entire group of students on visits to these sites on two different days. Students were extremely pleased and grateful for his invaluable contribution to the program.