Umbra Blog – Page 48 – DEV – The Umbra Institute – Study Abroad in Italy

Don’t be fooled. These aren’t paintings…they’re stained glass masterpieces.

House museum interns from the INIT 350: Academic Internship and Seminar course explored a small treasure here in Perugia called the Studio Moretti Caselli. Established in 1859, the Studio Moretti Caselli is an important workshop and museum devoted to stained glass production. Student interns interviewed the museum curators and artists to learn about the motivations behind the museum and to understand their target audience. The interns were thoroughly impressed by their works of art as well as the historical and social impact of this artistic craft. For their final project, the interns will provide suggestions of activities and initiatives to help local museums in Perugia promote their incredible collections to an international audience.

Students studying at the Umbra Institute Food Studies Program were highlighted in a recent SBU news article. The Food Studies program, a new initiative directed by Professor Zachary Nowak, was written up in an article on the Saint Bonaventure website.

It dealt specifically with the capstone trip in which all Food Studies participants take part, an overnight that brings students north to visit a salumificio (which makes Parma’s famous prosciutto), a Parmesan cheese cooperative, and a well-known artigianal acetaio (which makes balsamic vinegar).

“For Teixeira, Wozniak and their fellow students at the Umbra Institute in Perugia, a central Italian city known for its chocolate and its 35,000 university students, the trip to the cheese cooperative was a once-in-a-lifetime learning experience. ‘I was really surprised at the large amounts of food that could still be produced with a few workers and no huge factory,’ said Wozniak. ‘The whole trip was awesome.'”

The next step is a course on food ethics, which would take place in January and would be team-taught by Dr. Chiariello and Professor Nowak. Dr. Chiariello commented that such a class would “cover such topics as the responsibilities of the food industry; the moral dimensions of diet choices: a meat-based vs. plant-based diet; the environmental aspects of food production; factory farming; genetically modified food production; and, of course, our responsibility to the hungry of the world.”

Interested in more information on the Food Studies Program or the Umbra Institute’s Academic Programs? See some blog posts about it here.

We have a new UmbraViews video up! This one, which is also part of the new Community Engagement Video Series (see the other video on the UNICEF volunteer opportunity), details the volunteer opportunity offered to students study abroad in Italy with The Umbra Institute.

Here’s an excerpt from the Volunteering page on our website:

“Student volunteers will be introduced to fair trade in both a global and a local context, explore the social, political, and economic implications of their efforts, and research current initiatives in Italy. Monimbò, a local fair trade cooperative, promotes goods that protect workers’ rights and the environment. Interns assist with store operations and event planning, the monthly fair trade market, local and national public education and awareness campaigns, and marketing projects.”

Let us know what you think!

“I am in Italy, surrounded by ancient buildings, panoramic views, new people and a new way of life.” Marietta College Junior Megan Mason wrote a front-page article for the Marietta newspaper, The Marcolian, about her experience studying abroad in Italy with the Umbra Institute. The focus of the article is her experience so far, which has consisted of eating (four-course meals), traveling (Rome, Assisi, and soon many others), and learning (by seeing and touching, instead of reading from textbooks).

Read the complete article on the Marcolian website!

The Umbra Institute has long promoted study abroad not only as a fun-filled adventure in exploring another country’s culture, but also as a way to become a better global citizen. Today’s world, for better or for worse, does not revolve solely around national politics: whether we like it or not, we are part of an increasingly interconnected world. A recent study confirms the important role of study abroad in the development of a global citizen.

Professor Michael Tarrant from the University of Georgia demonstrates how designing specific outcomes for study abroad programs–not simply linguistic but also cultural competencies–can be tested empirically and shown to be crucial for developing a body of future scholars and leaders equipped to work in a global environment.” This only confirms the need for a serious, well-structured study abroad curriculum, complemented by co-curricular field trips and extracurricular activities geared towards helping students integrate in the local community–in other words, the Umbra model.

Tarrant, M. 2010. A Conceptual Framework for Exploring the Role of Studies Abroad in Nurturing Global Citizenship. Journal of Studies in International Education 14 (5):433-451.

Umbra Study abroad student Maria Papapietro (here through CIS) is keeping a blog on GoAbroad.net with her reflections on her experience here in Perugia. Themes include her goals for this semester abroad, what she’s doing with her classes, and how much she misses dryers. Have a look at her blog on study abroad in Italy.

If you find/have any other blog about life in Perugia send it in: we’ll post is as a featured blog post.

perugiasotterreanea — This is a screenshot — check out the full video after the jump!

Our good friend and Tuttoggi.it correspondent Nicola Palumbo went on the underground tour of Perugia this past Sunday and filmed his experience for Tuttoggi. We saw it this morning and were blown away: there’s great video from under the Duomo (officially Cattedrale San Lorenzo), the Etruscan Well, from the aqueduct leading to the Fontana Maggiore, and from a World War II-era air raid shelter — for this last one, there are also artifacts there were found inside.

Check out the full video after the jump! (more…)

Pellegrino Artusi,who in 1890 wrote Italy’s first modern cookbook, had grown up in Emilia-Romagna (a region in the north known for its hearty food) but lived out his adult life in Tuscany’s capital, Florence. Despite lots of culinary contributions from the south and far north, this area of Italy is considered the country’s food heartland. As part of their extensive list of extra-curricular activities, students taking the core course of the Food Studies Program had the opportunity to visit three small producers in the region.

The first stop was the Salumificio La Perla, in the windy hills above Parma. Students met Carlo Lanfranchi, a self-described farmer’s son and heart of the small, family-run factory where over ten thousand fresh Italian hams are turned into delicious prosciutto each year. Students saw the various stages of salting and Carlo explained the special text with a small horse-bone probe before the group went upstairs for a hearty lunch of cheese-and-herb filled ravioli and (of course) prosciutto. (more…)

Another Umbra Institute pizza night, another success! After a tough loss in the semester’s basketball game against ONAOSI, an Italian school, players and fans both tromped through the cold and snow to Il Paiolo, a pizzeria in the center of Perugia.

There were no hard feelings about the baseketball game, though, and some of the Italian players that study at Umbra even came to join in.

There, as you can see, they had steaming-hot Margherita pizzas in the cozy comfort of a well-lit Etruscan cave, a welcome respite from the blustery weather outside. Buon appetito!

Underground Tour of Perugia

Text translated from original flyer (attached):

Below the soil of Perugia, there exists a city even more ancient than the one that can be admired from the surface: a hidden world where speleology and archaeology become intertwined with history and where one can discover the many cultural treasures that are so often ignored.

The Speleological Group of Perugia will show you the secret crannies lying underneath the city, doing guided tours of the various sites, some of which will be opened just for this occasion. The visits will be led by art historians, speleologists, and archaeologists, who will illustrate the happenings and the secrets of this medieval city.

For contact information, click the read more link!

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