News

We interviewed alumna Mary Ann DuMond Kerr about her experience of the program a year after it was launched.

What semester and year did you attend Syracuse Florence?

Fall semester of 1960.  I think it was the second year of Syracuse in Florence.

What were your home school (Syracuse or elsewhere) and major?

I went to Syracuse and my major was sociology.

What did you study while in Florence? What kinds of courses were offered?

Political Science, Renaissance History, Art History, Italian, and ?

What was the fieldtrip program like at the time?

We arranged our own field trips to Napoli, Rome, Venice, Siena, Pisa, Bologna, and countless trips around Florence. Dr. Fleming took us to the Uffizi and many churches to see incredible art works. The field trips probably contributed to my mediocre grades, but I learned more than books could teach me. 

What is your most vivid memory of your study abroad experience?

I always think of the families with whom I stayed. One family was a Count and Countess and the other a Jewish family. They put up with my poor Italian, my late nights, crazy trips.  (Dr. Adams told us that we were expected to get culture shock, not give it.) I was so grateful for the experiences they shared and would never have had such a deep experience if it had not been for them. It was not that long after WWII.  One family, at great risk, had housed a Jewish family during the war, and my other family had to leave Florence quickly for a harrowing journey to Switzerland.  

When I was in Florence, it was during the fear of Communism era.  It was exciting to see the election banners and check out the Communist headquarters. I saved my Vota Communista poster for years. Dr. Adams later told us that whenever we climbed on a bus we would “rub shoulders and bump rumps with a Communist”.  

I also remember an exhausting trip to Siena, by bicycle (I loved my rickety bicycle). We didn’t account for the mountains we would have to climb or the failing brakes going downhill or the rain which soaked us or the many hours in the dark it took us to travel 50 miles. We were exhausted but saw most everything in Siena anyway. 

Dr. Adams took us to his farm where we made wine. A barrel of about 10 feet tall and 5 feet wide was filled with grapes. We climbed a ladder,  jumped in, and stomped around. After awhile, we could feel warm bubbles between our toes, and then we sank up to our knees in squished grapes. Finally we had to hold onto the beams to keep from drowning in wine. My friend said, “It must have been the greatest free leg show going!” I have had a passion for wine ever since. I heard that the wine we made was very strong.

If you have been back to Florence since, what was the most glaring change you noticed?

In 1967 I introduced my new husband to my beloved families. We have visited several times since, the last was in 2009 when Syracuse in Florence had its 50th reunion. I was impressed that the school had grown so much and offered many programs. We were shown around the city by a faculty member and saw places that I had forgotten or never seen. What an education! 

How did studying abroad affect your life?

I wrote to my folks, “Being here, 5000 miles away, has sure given me a chance to look at situations and life from an entirely different prospective. I’m sure I will be a better person for it, and I really want to thank you for letting me have this opportunity. I just wish I could relate in words every feeling and experience that I have had, so that you could share it with me. No matter how many pictures I show or how much I talk, I will never be able to share the full impact with anyone, not even my fellow students here, and I’m sure we will all feel the same way.”

While I was in Florence, I did a lot of soul searching about religion, relationships and my future. I left with a sense of purpose, which included a commitment to go to graduate school in social work. Since my grades weren’t great in Italy, (too much outside of school learning) I sure had to study when I got back to school. Classes were exciting and the reading inspiring. I had a real goal.

I did get my MSW at Smith College, where I was sent in the winter to Cleveland and Denver to do internships. After my time in Florence, these moves were a cinch. Again Syracuse in Italy made it easier to adjust when we moved to Kingston, Jamaica. I was the pediatric social worker at University of the West Indies Hospital. I had learned how to take risks and explore when I was in Florence, skills I used to make home visits, to confront and try to ease the pain of poverty.  

How do you occupy yourself now?

I’m a retired clinical social worker and look back on the heartwarming experiences I’ve had and the people I’ve met and learned from. Most of my work was in pediatrics – parenting, child abuse, and malnutrition. I’ve also worked with sex offenders and with families coping with hemophilia. 

I have also organized fundraisers for EyeWitness Palestine, which organizes trips to Israel/Palestine to meet activists and peacemakers and return to share with others what they have seen. We bring speakers to Cleveland who discuss the plight of the Palestinians and their efforts to resist military rule, imprisonment of children, demolishing houses, wounding civilians. 

I have become more active in our Methodist Church especially after the discriminatory decision by the church to exclude the LGBTQ community. We are a diverse, reconciling church which means that we welcome all those who are LGBTQ people. How do we resist this anti-Christian decision?

We also visit our children in Washington, DC and Taos, NM. We have one granddaughter after years of nagging. Both are activists, our son is a history professor at American University, focusing on the homeless and social justice. Our daughter is a high school Spanish teacher and works for human rights in the Latino community.

Do you have anything else you would like to add?

Thank you for the opportunity to reminisce. 

[Editor’s note: see UNESCO Firenze’s Facebook page to check out the reels Katie created for the association during her time working for them.]

During my internship with UNESCO I visited the following heritage sites around the city: the Basilica di Santa Trinita, the Hospital of the Innocents, the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata, the Misericordia, Piazza Savonarola, Piazza Libertà, the Giardino Dell’Orticoltura, and the Palazzo Guadagni Strozzi Sacrati. This internship allowed me to learn about Florence’s history and culture and explore smaller, less-touristy sites that tend to hold immaterial culture. These sites are not as grand as the Uffizi or the Duomo, but they still have history and cultural significance. Stories about sites like the Misericordia and the Hospital of the Innocents taught me a lot about the community and the long history of social welfare in Florence. This has been very interesting for me as I major in policy.

I have also had the opportunity to attend heritage events, such as Carlo Levi a Firenze, and learn more about immaterial heritage, that is, the history and culture of those living in the city, rather than the concrete sites themselves. This immaterial heritage is especially valuable when learning about the lives of those that were marginalized under the fascist regime and how they preserved their culture in Florence.

I highly recommend taking up an internship while abroad as it allows you to learn more about Florence than you ever could in a classroom. The hands-on opportunity to visit sites around the city, attend events, and develop relationships has been invaluable. I could not recommend UNESCO more if you want to experience Florence for all of its cultures. I am very lucky to have had this experience, and to encourage you further to visit smaller sites, here are a few pictures of those I had the opportunity to visit:

On April 6, the mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, met with a group of our intermediate and advanced Italian language students to present his new book, La Città Universale (The Universal City), about the role of cities in Europe today. The event, which took place in our aula magna (room 13), felt informal and intimate. After the mayor presented his book, he and the students engaged in a pleasant conversation based on questions they had prepared after reading abstracts of his book in their courses.

The questions focusing on everything from diplomacy and what it takes to run a city like Florence to the mayor’s passion for music, the possibilities offered by a political career, unusual places to visit in this city, and the large American community here.

Afterwards, everyone gathered around the wisteria in the garden to engage with each other further, take some selfies, and continue the informal conversation with great enthusiasm on everyone’s part.

“The Mayor reminded us the role that Florence plays internationally also thanks to its weighty cultural heritage,” said Director Perugini. “It was truly a touching and inspiring experience. Many thanks to our Italian Department for guiding the students in the reading and understanding.” 

This March, five out of six members of the Florence MA Class of 2000 gathered in Florence—many returning for the first time in over 20 years. The motivator for this reunion, originally planned for 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic, was alumna Lia Markey. Lia was inspired to invite her classmates to join her in Florence, where she is spending a few months this spring on research leave from her duties at Director of the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library in Chicago. She didn’t have to twist many arms, and she and the other members of her cohort spent a delightful week together sharing memories, visiting favorite art historical monuments, and reconnecting with former professors and colleagues.

A highlight of their visit was a brindisi at the Villa Rossa hosted by Florence Graduate Program coordinator Molly Bourne, who took the above photograph of the class of 2000 in the garden with their professors Ezio Buzzegoli, Rab Hatfield (retired), Diane Kunzelman, and Jonathan Nelson. Unfortunately, Lia was not able to attend due to the momentary illness of her pre-school daughter, so she, along with classmate Jenny Patten, who couldn’t come to Florence, are not pictured. The current MA class of 2023 also joined the event, and enjoyed hearing their predecessors reflect on how an extended period of immersive learning in Florence has impacted their lives both personally and professionally. We have excerpted some of their words here.

Lia Markey: “The Syracuse M.A. in Italian Renaissance Art in Florence instilled me with a passion for archival research that has inspired years of research. Training in the social history of art, conservation studies, museum studies, and paleography prepared me for a varied career as an interdisciplinary art historian, while the process of writing and presenting the symposium paper provided essential skills for lecturing and for teaching.

Thanks to the Syracuse MA in Florence, not only did I learn skills that would allow me to progress in the field of Renaissance studies, but I also met friends/colleagues that I would treasure throughout my life. Florence will always be a second home for me.”

Melanie Taylor (Director at Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Singapore): “The experience of being a teaching assistant was perhaps the most formative I had in my two years in Florence. Preparing for classes, especially the focus on how to communicate with students, and being able to stand physically in front of masterpieces discussing them, was a gift of time and pure joy. Nothing will replace time spent in the presence of frescoed walls in hidden side chapels or sculptures in the niches of Orsanmichele. The Florence program and professors have always understood how remarkable being in the presence of art and architecture, and all things Italian, is. I don’t think any other program strives in the same way to immerse students (all students, especially the undergrads) in Italian culture.”

Lisa Neal Tice (Instructor of art history at Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA): “The graduate program in Italian Renaissance Art at SU Florence was an invaluable experience, both personally and academically. The courses in conservation and restoration, museum studies, and archival research enriched my understanding of Renaissance art but perhaps most importantly, they were an introduction to diverse fields of study within art history that have impacted how I teach, research and study art history today. The faculty at SU Florence generously established many connections and opportunities for us throughout the city. On a personal note, I am grateful for the students with whom I shared these experiences, who are now both colleagues and friends. We studied and lived together in Florence and experienced academic successes and challenges, many travel adventures, many, many cappuccini, and created enduring friendships. I treasure my time at SU Florence and hope that students will continue to benefit from the incredible education and experiences the program has to offer.” 

Julie Zappia McLean (Program Coordinator, Cornell University Society for the Humanities, Ithaca, NY): “The program immersed us in the world of the Renaissance: we learned directly from primary sources, interacted with on-site professionals, explored elective classes, and became residents of the incomparable city of Florence. I would attribute my experience as a TA for Syracuse’s undergrad courses to my successes as a museum educator. I learned to approach looking at original works of art from an interpreter’s perspective, to ask questions of my audience, to facilitate discussion, and to lead large groups of people through a space. I learned how to read my audience, that people have many varied opinions and responses to art, and how to engage almost any type of learner with art. After returning to the U.S., I held several positions in museum education at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smith College Museum of Art, and the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, before taking my current job, which welcomes fellows each year to study at our center and produce work in art history, literature, music, cultural studies, and many more humanities topics. The friendships I formed with our cohort have endured, as seen by our recent reunion. We hold each others’ memories of our special time in Florence, and I know we’ll never forget the many profound experiences we shared.”

Engineering professor Francesca Parotti was featured in a recent issue of La Repubblica’s Il Venerdi’ magazine about a new master’s degree in space design at Florence’s Istituto Superiore delle Industrie Artistiche that she has helped to launch. Parotti is quoted throughout the article, talking about meeting the future needs of humans on the moon and on mars, the hypothetical planetary engineering process known as terraforming, and space-related prototypes that have already been developed.

Professor Stefania Berutti came up with a fanciful assignment for the students in her Classical Mythology class: to create the front page of a “Homer Gazette,” imagining a report from the battlefield of the Trojan War. Here were her favorites:

This week, Dr. Daniel Leisawitz returned to the Villa Rossa for the first time in 25 years. Though he has travelled again to Italy since then, this was his first time back at Syracuse Florence. He spent some time as a guest in five of our Italian classes to talk about the doors that can open by studying Italian and the study abroad experience in general.

Dr. Leisawitz, who got his PhD from Yale, is currently on sabbatical from his job as Assistant Professor of Italian at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he also serves as Director of the Italian Studies Program. He is using this semester in Florence to work on a translation of Emanuele Trevi’s novel Senza verso. Un’estate a Roma. He also talked to current Syracuse Florence students about his work on L’Orlando Furioso, the epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto.

David Broder, who teaches our new Twentieth-Century Europe course, has just published his new book Mussolini’s Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy. 

A study of Italy’s neo- and post-fascist movements since the fall of the regime, it explains a generational change on the far-right — with Meloni’s experiences growing up in the 1990s distinguishing her from both the defeated fascists of 1945 and militants from the Years of Lead. Yet while the ambitions and modes of action have changed, fascist ways of talking about national identity and history have taken new form — from ethnic ideas of the homogeneous national community to the accusations against “financiers” and “Marxists” supposedly plotting its destruction. 

Mussolini’s Grandchildren explores the history of the “party of the flame,” the success of its modern-day heirs, and the decline of Italy’s antifascist mores. It is available from Pluto Press. 

Engineering professor Francesca Parotti has been teaching a class on Sustainability in Civil and Environmental Systems since we introduced our engineering program in 2015. Outside of teaching, her freelance work includes that of building-site safety manager. On March 6, she participated in a round-table at a conference on women and workplace safety at the town hall in Bagno a Ripoli, a suburb of Florence.

Parotti was happy to report back that the discussions were very animated and there were several interesting talks. She said participants stressed the importance of women taking leading roles in the workplace while being guaranteed the ability to reconcile work and motherhood and not being forced to choose because of a lack of institutional support.

Speakers also highlighted how performance stress affects women more than men because they are constantly being forced to prove that they “deserve” their roles in STEM or as managers.

As a case in point, Parotti’s presentation focused on her struggles as a safety manager trying to make others respect the rules because of the chauvinist culture of building sites where service orders are taken less seriously when delivered by a woman.