The 2025 Coccia-Inserra Teaching Award Application is NOW OPEN!

Calling all Teachers of Italian at the K-12 Levels:

The Director of the Coccia Institute is delighted to announce the 2025 Coccia-Inserra Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Teaching of Italian (K-12). Recognizing the importance of acknowledging and motivating excellence in the teaching of Italian, the Coccia family and Lawrence Inserra, Jr., have established this significant award.

The recipient of the Coccia-Inserra Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Teaching of Italian (K-12) will receive a $5000 prize for academic year 2025. These funds are to be allocated as follows:

a) $2500 is to be used exclusively to advance the Italian language and culture curriculum and programming within the recipient’s classroom;
b) $2500 is to be dedicated to the professional development of the winning teacher (for direct payment of academic fees to an institution of professional development in Italian language and culture at home or abroad).

We strongly encourage full-time language teachers certified in Italian who are teaching a minimum of two classes of Italian at the K-12 level to apply!

NEW THIS YEAR:

The application will be split into two rounds, where teachers will submit materials from Section A-Section I by Saturday, February 15th, 2025 at 11:59pm via this Google Form submission.

The 2025 Coccia-Inserra Award application process will follow a new format in lieu of the previous video submission requirement. Our panel of judges will review and evaluate all of the preliminary applications. As part of their review, the judges will select the three top applicants and invite them to arrange a Zoom call with the Coccia Institute Program Coordinator, Cristina Latino, for a live observation of their Italian class. The Zoom meeting, which will last between 10-15 minutes, will be recorded and shared with the judges for their review. Once notified of their successful preliminary submission, the finalists are encouraged to arrange a Zoom meeting as early as possible with the Coccia Program Coordinator, and no later than Thursday, May 15th, 2025. The winner and runner-ups will be notified by mid-June. Our eighteenth annual Teaching Italian Symposium will take place on Friday, October 17, 2025 at the University Hall Conference Center at Montclair State University. The Coccia-Inserra Teaching Award will be presented on this occasion.

All applications and supporting material MUST be submitted electronically via this Google Form (one submission only per applicant). No paper submissions will be accepted. Applications will be considered incomplete if sent fully via email. For your convenience, here is a copy of the guidelines for the 2025 Coccia-Inserra Teaching Award Application. We recommend that applicants read the document first before submitting the Google form, as your work-in-progress will not be saved and the guidelines highlight all the required materials for a complete application.

If you would like additional information or have any questions, please feel free to contact Professor Mark Rotella, Director of the Coccia Institute, at rotellam@montclair.edu and Cristina Latino, Coccia Institute Program Coordinator, at coccia-assistant@montclair.edu.