News - September 11, 2009

The art of study abroad

Through “The City as a Work of Art,” the orientation lecture presented by SUF Professor Alick McLean, and the ‘zone dinners’ created for students to get to know each other, the first week of the semester offered students the opportunity to realize that there is indeed an ‘art’ to study abroad.

McLeans lecture began, not surprisingly, with some history…but with a twist. He presented the intriguing idea that the concept of what is art can be applied to the form daily life takes, both in past and present Italy. From the Etruscans to present day Italy, McLean presented some unusual topics for our consideration as art: defense of the city, public ritual, and ordinary day-to-day living. Says McLean “In italy there are cultural habits formed over hundreds of generations living in the same cities. The development of the Italian city can be so much more than just as a matrix of infrastructure, buildings, residents, and services—it is also a composition of consummate art.”

McLean urged the SUF students to become a part of the performance art of daily life in their host city by active participation in the art of daily ritual. For example, if one chooses to frequent a small, independently owned food shop rather than the supermarket, it’s only a matter of time before cultural barriers are breached and the shop owner becomes an acquaintance. Give it a little more time, and the shop owner is a friend, asking about your mother and giving out recipes for how to prepare the food you just purchased.  McLean added that this is one of the best ways to really increase your proficiency in Italian, and to better come into contact with and understand Italian culture.

The lecture segued quite naturally into a ‘zone dinner,’ SUF’s solution to the art of helping students meet other students living in their neighborhood. Dinner was offered in the campus garden, followed by an ice-breaker exercise: students were given a page of questions, each of which they had to ask to a different student whom they had not yet met, and write down that student’s answer. The pace was fast and fun as students circulated, asked questions, and recorded answers. The first two students to finish the survey won coupons for Elia’s Caffè, the campus bar. Said Monica Davis of Santa Clara University, winner of a coupon, “The zone dinner was such a fun way to meet all of the people who live in my neighborhood. I had no idea that some of my new friends were also my next-door neighbors.”