When I joined the Italian Department at Smith College in the fall semester 2007, I had been in the country for only a year and my experience teaching in a higher-education institution in the United Stated was limited to one ten-month appointment at a large university. Although I had already taught Italian for five years in the UK prior to my arriving in the U.S., teaching at Smith opened up new possibilities, gave me a new purpose and helped me grow professionally. While building on positive and effective past teaching experiences, my approach to teaching remains adaptable and based on evolving student needs.

At Smith, I have particularly grown to appreciate the college’s strong commitment to women’s global education, to internationalization and to creating a student population that reflects the advancement of minority groups in American society. In recent years, such goals have been reflected in the makeup of my classes and this has inspired me to actively participate in events organized by the college to promote inclusion, multiculturalism and diversity on campus.

I see myself as a dynamic, innovative and collaborative individual, who has acquired a wide range of skills during fifteen years working as a higher-education specialist. My professional profile comprises three main components: a very strong record of teaching gained in diverse educational institutions (in the UK and USA), valuable academic research in 19th century Italian literary culture and the nation-building process, and specific administrative competencies developed working as academic director of two study-abroad programs in Florence (IT). I have also been actively involved in promoting the Italian curriculum.

My teaching philosophy is completely student-centered. I believe students learn best when they have a purpose, and turn their knowledge into something personal and real, something they care about. To this end, I have based my teaching on three main elements: education, motivation and communication. I have learned from my own experience that teaching is not a one-way process, but it firstly requires exceptional interpersonal skills in order to establish with the students a relationship based on trust. Teaching requires vision, the ability to mediate between specific educational objectives and students’ needs and learning styles. It is also based on the ability to assess what learners know, understand, and can do, and to use such assessments to plan for future activities in order to help them achieve mastery. Teaching is motivating and inspiring students, leading them to give their best. A good portion of my responsibility as an educator is to train students to be receptive to new ideas and information, to instruct and to coach them in this process and finally to mentor them in those moments when difficulties arise. My goal is to bring Italian language and culture to life and in so doing I hope to stimulate students to want to experience “the real thing” and study abroad in Italy, which help create life-long fluency in the language.

Throughout my career, my commitment to excellence in teaching has been constant and growing. Naturally, I cultivate a keen interest in language pedagogy, and in new teaching strategies. I have demonstrated this in two primary ways. First, I have participated regularly in professional development workshops that focus on the ever-evolving learning needs and styles of today’s students. Second, by actively pursuing numerous research grant and curriculum enhancement opportunities available at Smith and within the Five Colleges, I have had the chance to explore and expand my own teaching interests and skills. I have especially embraced the use of innovative Blended Learning teaching methodologies in my courses, and I have obtained five grants from the Mellon Foundation (4 with other faculty members and 1 by myself) to work on specific projects aimed at diversifying the means through which students study Italian, and, as a result, at enhancing their learning.

In the spring semester 2016 I also participated in a case study for McGraw-Hill Education, publisher of Avanti! the textbook in our Beginning Italian course. In this case study I provide feedback and data on the use and implementation of the online platform containing language exercises and activities in my Italian classes and how it has impacted and benefited students’ learning and also my own teaching. The case study was published on the McGraw-Hill Education website in the fall 2016.

The experience I have gained in the classroom has also been enriched by opportunities to teach across the board, either in the capacity of guest or visiting lecturer (Mount Holyoke College, 2011, ’13, ’17, and UMass 2017) or by creating and co-teaching courses that emphasize interdisciplinary learning. Two in particular are worth mentioning: Savoring Italy: Recipes and Thoughts on Italian Cuisine and Culture and the above-mentioned Made in Italy. Both courses are similar in their pedagogical approach and learning goals: they are taught in English and aim at introducing students to Italian culture, history, and society by means of two different approaches (food culture or design). Made in Italy, in particular, is a widely collaborative course as it offers regular guest presentations from scholars in other disciplines (Art History, Museum Studies, Landscape Studies, Economics, Engineering, Anthropology, History, etc.). Given the far-reaching range of topics covered, the course addresses a variety of student’s interests and majors, and it highlights the notion that Italian can be studied in an interdisciplinary fashion. Both courses have enjoyed great interest among students, and enrollments have been consistently high (50-90 students).

In addition, during my time at Smith I have worked extensively on new course proposals and curriculum revision. Courses I have created, either singlehandedly or in collaboration with members of the Italian department, include the two above-mentioned courses and the senior seminar Creation of Italian National Identity. 

My doctoral thesis explored the synergy between medievalism and national identity in historical novels of the early 19th century, and how their authors were instrumental in promoting emotional adhesion to an idealized national community, which anticipated the Unification of Italy. At the core of my dissertation is the Italian historical novel genre read, analyzed and contextualized not simply in literary terms, but as a singular manifestation of specific aesthetic and cultural tendencies that converged and cohered in the first half of the nineteenth century: medievalism on the one hand and patriotic zeal on the other. The field of research on Risorgimento Italy and the nation-building process is relatively contemporary, but in spite of the numerous publications that have appeared on the occasion of the recent 150th anniversary of the Italian unification (2011), it is a subject that is still generally under-studied. My research interests particularly lie in the cultural history of the Risorgimento period, and my study analyzes how medievalism truly functioned as a cultural phenomenon in pre-unification Italy not only in literary circles, among aristocrats or educated people, but among the masses. I also seek to put medievalism in connection with the vast amplification produced by the frenzied publication of historical novels that occurred between 1827 and 1848. Failing to connect these dots would result in eschewing the understanding of how the ensemble of the symbolic codes that supported the participation in the national movement came to be.

Lastly, my experience in Study Abroad and International Education as Academic Director in Florence, Italy (Smith College Junior Year Abroad, 2011/2012, CEA Study Abroad, 2014/2015) helped me develop specific administrative and supervisory skills. In my capacity as director I performed a wide variety of tasks and oversaw several different projects. Among these, it was my responsibility to hire and supervise adjunct personnel for the program, such as teachers and/or tutors. I acted as the administrative liaison between our programs, the host university and its faculty, and as class dean and academic adviser for the students. This entailed ensuring that the students were enrolled in courses appropriate to their preparation and ability, and in keeping with requirements necessary for the completion of their major and other academic requirements. I also oversaw and monitored the necessary arrangements for the students’ room and board in housing arranged by the program. Additionally, I attempted to facilitate cultural adaptation and the students’ safe integration into the community by organizing language exchange meetings with University of Florence students, as well as other experiential learning and volunteer opportunities.