Warm greetings from Ascoli Piceno! Although the UNH-in-Italy study abroad program has been in operation for some five years already, it has not been receiving the kind of wide publicity it so richly deserves.

It seems to stand in the shadow of better-known study abroad programs in larger Italian cities (such as Rome and Florence) which are operated by third parties (usually other universities or organizations in the business of study abroad). This is really a shame because the site in Italy where the UNH program is located is a relatively small city (it has a population of approximately 60,000 people) that is off the beaten tourist track.

Located in the central region of Marche, which is sandwiched comfortably between Tuscany and Umbria on the Adriatic side of the Italian peninsula, Ascoli Piceno is a very beautiful town that contains Roman ruins, medieval churches, renaissance palaces, spacious town squares, and narrow cobblestone streets; olive groves and grape vines are everywhere.

Although there are numerous modern conveniences available here, the forces of globalization (and especially Americanization) have not yet left their indelible mark on this quaint town, which – unlike Rome and Florence -- has not lost any of its considerable old world charm. The city is neighborhood oriented, free of major crime, and proud of its culinary and cultural heritage. Most importantly, especially for our students who are intensively studying Italian here, English is not yet widely spoken in Ascoli.

Simply getting to Ascoli initially is quite an achievement for our travel-weary students, who after a six-hour flight from the U.S. to Rome must take a 40-minute train ride from Fiumicino Airport to the city's central train station in downtown Rome and then walk several blocks with all their baggage to a bus station, where they board a bus for a three-hour ride over the beautiful Appenini Mountains to reach Ascoli some 180 kilometers away.

Upon arrival, they are met by the program's administrative director, Cristian Muscelli, who takes them to the centrally-located apartments they will call home for the next fourteen weeks. During the initial week of orientation, the students are familiarized with a number of important sites in town (important for practical purposes) such as the local grocery store, the post office, the program offices and classrooms. They also register for residency permits at the local police station.

One highlight of orientation week is a sumptuous welcoming dinner held for the students at a local family-run restaurant (this semester it was held at La Locanderia on, of course, Via Giancarlo Goldoni). In Italy – the home of the Slow Food movement and an avowed enemy of McDonald's – this means a three-hour, six-course meal that unfolds at a leisurely, relaxed pace. In Ascoli, it also means plentiful quantities of a delicious local culinary item of which the town is rightly quite proud: i.e., its famous stuffed olives (le olive ripiene ascolane).

My wife, Lynda (nee Gagliardi), and I have been living in Ascoli for nearly six weeks now. Like the students, we are both taking classes in Italian (taught by local instructors who are native speakers) on the UNH-in-Italy program campus. Since I took ITAL 401-402 in Durham last year, I am now taking intermediate Italian, while Lynda is taking elementary Italian.

These language classes are already making a noticeable difference when we do our daily grocery shopping at the local produce market, when we need to get a purse repaired, or when we purchase stamps and bus tickets at the several tabaccherias (tobacco shops that resemble the “Mom and Pop” corner stores we used to see throughout the U.S.) scattered around town.

Our students are likewise finding that the courses they are currently taking here – in Italian language, literature, culture, art and architecture -- are making a significant difference in their ability to become readily acclimated and acculturated to the Italian way of life. It is certainly making it easier for them to order an entree at one of the local pizzerias and ask for their favorite flavor of ice cream at a gelateria.

So what, you might well ask, is a professor of Russian and Humanities (with a French surname no less) doing here in Italy? Well, I hope that my background in study abroad (working in the past on programs in Russia, Hungary and Denmark as well as serving as a study abroad advisor and later as interim director of UNH’s Center for International Education) has provided me with some valuable experience and helpful expertise in study abroad issues.

As a faculty member who teaches in the department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, moreover, I am keenly aware not only of the formidable challenges that face those who seek to learn the language and culture of another people, but also of the tremendous satisfaction that can come from beginning to comprehend how these other people conceptualise the world (and their place in it) through their rituals, beliefs, and customs.

In any case, I was absolutely delighted last year when my LLC colleague, Piero Garofalo, a professor of Italian who was very instrumental in creating the UNH-in-Italy program and who now helps to run it, informed me that the program's steering committee had selected me to serve as the academic director for fall 2006. Now that my wife and I have been able to spend a few weeks living in this charming Italian town, that selection has delighted me even more. A presto!