Italian and American High School Students Visit Montclair State University Campus

On April 25, 2016 a group of students of Italian from St Peter’s Prep, NJ, and Italian students from Gonzaga High, Palermo, Italy, visited our campus in connection with an exchange program. Both professors and students of the Italian Program at Montclair State University welcomed them as they toured the facilities and learned about the academic offerings on campus.

“This year marked the 15th anniversary of Saint Peter’s Prep’s Italian Exchange Program and our 10th anniversary with Gonzaga more specifically,” explained Rosalie Romano, Italian teacher at St Peter’s Prep. “We wanted to give the students of both our American and Italian schools an opportunity to see what college life looks like. My students are now considering enrolling at Montclair State to continue their studies and I think this would be a great fit for them. Also, they had the chance to visit Italy during Spring break, and to spend some time in Sicily, a region that is not quite known among American students. They experienced the unique sights, sounds, and tastes of Sicilian culture in a context that is more relaxed than the usual Italian touristic destinations, and I have to say that for me it was a thrill to re-discover Sicily and its beauties through my students’ eyes.”

Fr. Eraldo Cacchione, Principal at the Istituto Gonzaga in Palermo commented: “I studied in the United States myself, at Berkeley, California, and at USF, San Francisco; so, I know the importance of studying abroad. When visiting the Montclair State campus, I was filled with joy discovering this little pearl in a local, semi-urban State University. The students look very committed to their studies and it seems they’re receiving both a very attentive care from professors and staff, as well as a very challenging college experience.”

“Most of all, I was impressed by what I learned about some Departments, like the Italian one,” Fr. Eraldo continued. “They thrust the students into the real world, forming them not in a de-contextualized, abstract way, but preparing them for actual job careers. In particular, the idea of combining Italian Studies with Arts, Design, Music, Theater, Business, and other fields of contemporary application is simply ingenious: it makes studying Italian a “lively” area of research and learning, rather than a field of studies that simply looks at past splendors. This way, studying prompts creativity, fires energies and makes a student ready to act as a player, rather than as a spectator in the context in which he/she is projected. I wish this ‘little’ university will soon become one of the American big universities. I am sure this will happen, given the good ideas, the ingenious people and the positive energies one can experience at Montclair State.”

Teresa Fiore, a Professor of Italian and Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies on campus, was pleased to welcome the students along with her colleagues in the Italian Program (Dr. Trubiano and Dr. Del Principe) and majors and minors in Italian, in the course of a campus tour and formal presentation of the Italian Program and the university at large. “What strikes visiting students, whether local or from abroad, is the unique nature of our campus: still intimate and quiet despite its growing size, but also very vibrant thanks to its academic offerings and extra-curricular activities. Next to the university’s hard-to-match affordability, they notice its proximity to New York (30 minutes by direct non-stop bus), which is a particularly important feature for students interested in combining Italian and Arts, or Italian and Business, or Italian and Food. The metropolitan area in which we live makes studying here ripe with hands-on opportunities to learn and be enriched as people and future professionals.”