ARRIVALS >>> DEPARTURES
An Adventure in Four Chapters
by Professors Blake Belanger and Adriana Molina
The College of Architecture, Planning and Design (APDesign) provides students with a lifechanging opportunity to study and travel in Italy for a full semester during their fourth year. The program is headquartered in Orvieto, an ancient hilltop town centrally located between Rome and Florence. With easy rail access to several of Italy’s most inspiring cities and the charm of a small medieval village, Orvieto is a perfect setting for first-hand learning experiences centered around architecture, landscape architecture, city planning, and design. Situated within scenic vineyards and farms, Orvieto is also a gateway to locations like Milan, Venice, Siena, and Capri, which brings our students face-to-face with the diverse landscapes, cities, and buildings of Italy.
We, the professors who accompanied the Spring 2020 class to Orvieto, were exhilarated and honored to be teaching in the program. We designed our courses around the theme “arrivals and departures,” focusing on the importance of thoughtfully orchestrating the experiences of entering and leaving cities, outdoor places, and buildings. Little did we know how appropriate that theme would become.
Spring semester 2020 will be memorable for the entire K-State Family. For the APDesign Italian Studies Program students, administrators, and us, the semester was an adventure of arrivals and departures in four chapters.
Preparation and Anticipation
Preparing students for their time abroad is a distinguishing quality of APDesign’s Italian Studies Program. Each fall on campus, prior to departure, program administrators and staff prepare students for the semester ahead. Preparation focused on essential travel skills and provided a cultural basis for new experiences, while also guiding students through the logistics of travel planning and attaining a study visa. To help students prepare academically, we introduced our spring courses and issued foundational assignments to preface the spring semester.
Anticipation was high. Due to the long-standing reputation of the Program, many students had been planning for this education abroad experience since they committed to K-State. Professors and students who previously participated in the program regularly shared their experiences and academic outcomes. Posters of the Italian Studies projects hung prominently on the walls every year, heightening the students’ excitement and enthusiasm for their own experiences. In the fall they learned about the sites and cities they would visit and planned their spring break adventures. Families intending to visit their student abroad bought airline tickets, made lodging reservations, and arranged the details of their trip. When spring semester arrived, everything was going as planned and everyone was eager to begin the journey.
Living and Learning in Italy
We and our twenty-six students arrived in Rome as a group on the twenty-second of January. Blue sky welcomed us as we floated through farms and vineyards aboard a motor coach heading to Orvieto. Serena Croce, Program Director for Kansas State University in Italy, pointed out Roman villas from antiquity dotting the countryside while we attempted to blink jetlag from our eyes. Approaching Orvieto was dramatic. The city is perched over 500 feet above the valley and rests atop an ancient volcanic rock formation. Sheer cliffs and steep slopes surround the city on all sides, making it a strategic settlement location for over 3,000 years.
In the following weeks, we settled into our new homes. We learned to navigate the medieval street network, became friends with locals, frequented our favorite fresh food markets, and in some cases improved our ability to speak Italian. We often talked about the amazing restaurants and we ate incredible meals. We visited the nearby dreamlike hill towns of Civita di Bagnoregio and Bolsena. Led by Italian Culture and History professor Marco Ceccarani, we toured Rome, Florence, Siena, and Assisi, where he brought history to life with his captivating storytelling.
The well-orchestrated program gave students and faculty opportunities to participate in workshops from local craftsman, artists, and chefs. One day we each created a sketchbook in a leather shop, and another day a professional photographer led us through the streets of Orvieto helping us to photograph (and see) the world in new ways. We learned how to make pasta from scratch, create ceramic sculptures, and replicate the centuries-old tradition of making marbled paper.
As a collaborative endeavor we offered a studio and two seminars. The students also benefit from taking courses covering Italian history, culture, and language from K-State in Italy professors. To complement our theme of arrivals and departures we focused the seminars on image-making, storytelling, and memory. All the courses were tailored to enhance the experience of living and learning in Italy; in studio we chose to study an area in Orvieto for our research and design projects, and in seminar we crafted each assignment to coincide with travel and workshop experiences. We were fully immersed living, learning, and working in Orvieto, and it felt like our home. We had arrived.
An Abrupt Transition
As the weeks passed, our program continued to follow our schedule and travel to places in central Italy, meanwhile regions in northern Italy were becoming deeply impacted by the spread of COVID-19. Milan and other areas went into lockdown, shuttering businesses and prohibiting nonessential travel. Murmurs of concern began rippling through our small town, and we maintained hope that restrictions wouldn’t impact the program. Our optimism began to fade when it became clear that the field trip to Milan would be postponed to the end of the semester, after travel restrictions were removed, or so we hoped. As Italian restrictions and American travel advisories intensified, a heavy realization began permeating our group. Dean De Noble and other University administrators weighed all available options, and on March fourth sent official word that it was time to repatriate. After an emotional moment at one of our most frequented cafés the group collectively wished a tearful goodbye to our new home. The final days in Orvieto were busy with data collection for the studio project, last-minute shopping, more tearful goodbyes, and packing for the unexpected and surreal departure to the United States.
Italy from a Distance
The students exhibited tremendous perseverance and resilience during the remainder of the semester. Just like the entire K-State population, the Italian Studies students had to transition from in-person courses to remote learning. Our group, however, had the additional emotional burden of abruptly leaving Orvieto and arriving directly into a fourteen-day quarantine. In an effort to bring the spirit of Orvieto back to the US, we continued to focus on our Orvieto study area in studio and Italy-inspired creative works in seminar. At the end of the semester, the students had produced truly outstanding materials. The studio designs proposed imaginative and tenable solutions for improving the arrival and departure experiences in Orvieto. In seminar, the final compositions expressively (and sometimes emotionally) conveyed narratives, experiences, and memories of living in Italy.
Conclusion
Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic across two continents and through tiers of administration demonstrates the commitment and dedication of decision-makers, coordinators, and directors leading the APDesign Italian Studies Program. They should be commended for their handling of the situation, and their actions provide evidence that the program was resilient in a crisis. Students aspiring to participate in this unique program in the future will be in good hands moving forward.
Spring 2020 was characterized by unexpected arrivals and departures. Some departures occurred early and many arrivals never took place. Despite the unprecedented challenges and unexpected transitions, the experience was lifechanging and nothing less than inspiring. In addition to learning course material customized for the Italian studies program, students embraced Italian culture and created lifelong memories. We all learned to be adaptable through uncertainty and to persevere when challenged. Many of us plan to return to Italy as soon as possible. Despite the distance, many of us feel closer to Italy than ever before.
