Streams of migrants flow north daily from the southern hemisphere to Italy and the United States, where Europe held colonies, and the United States dominated business and politics for generations. The two countries are also both wrestling with swings in political discourse and shifting immigration policy, all at the same time as their citizens are occupied with debates about perceived threats to cultural identity. Italy and the United States provide similarities and contrasts for studying migration, immigration law, resettlement, and the lived experience of migrants. And so a group of 21 of us went to the University of Washington Rome Center during the Winter 2024 Quarter to do just that.
Roman Forum
Nineteen undergraduate honors students (and two Professors) joined two Italian Professors in four courses designed to complement each other and to provide students with a broad experience living in a world capital. They took basic Italian to be able to navigate the city, have some understanding of simple commerce, and greet their neighbors. The students took a lecture course which outlined patterns of disasters from genocide and civil war, to earthquakes and global warming. It focused on the varied traumas migrants experience from physical assault and depravation, to perilous migration routes, camps, detention, torture, and trafficking. And they learned about the institutions, policies and immigration law in Italy and the U.S. that migrants must navigate after they escape. The students worked in and examined resettlement organizations assisting migrants in Rome, and had some limited contact with refugees in these service sites. Finally, they studied Roman history and used the built environment of Rome to study narratives of power through the millennia that continue to reverberate today in discussions of public benefits, law and order, citizenship, trafficking, forced assimilation, and structures of inequity. Each course touched on elements relevant to the other courses and challenged students intellectually and emotionally.
Rome at sunset
The undergraduate students came from Environmental Studies, Biology, Philosophy, History, Public Health, Public Policy, and Anthropology. There is no discipline untouched by migration studies, from the biology of starvation and traumatic brain injury to the politics of water during global warming, as such there is something for each discipline and an expertise each student has to teach their peers. While this was not the international lark many will describe their study abroad program to be, the students engaged with real people, living the topics they were reading about, they learned about the enormity of losses faced, and the remarkable resilience of survivors, and while the workload was not overwhelming and they did have an opportunity to travel, many of them reported having their eyes opened to the hard realities of history and public policy, and firmly feeling they had left more provincial views behind.
Written by Dr. Jonathan Carey Jackson, professor in the Department of Medicine and an adjunct professor in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington. Dr. Jackson has 32 years of experience designing research programs and services for immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. He has mentored and taught generations of graduate students, medical students, residents, fellows, and colleagues on refugee-related issues for decades.
We’re almost there! After nearly four years of renovations, we can almost say, “We’re done!” Final—but big—touches are currently being completed on the fourth floor, where we’ll now have five apartments for faculty and UW Rome Center intern use. Kitchens, lighting, and doors are currently being installed and wardrobes are being built. We’re also getting ready for some much needed dusting off of furniture and a complete rehab of the Penthouse apartment terrace.
As this floor is dedicated to apartments, the project took a different shape as we envisioned how to best make use of the space and make each apartment more functional for its inhabitants. The most major change in use was the reconfiguration of the former studio-turned library and computer lab-turned temporary office and classroom space to two new apartments. For anyone who knows this space, our challenge was to make them light and comfortable without the gift of a view with the tall windows. In the new apartment to the right, we were able to repurpose the prior bathroom and laundry room into a kitchen with a view. Other important changes to the layout also include direct access to the balcony from the bedroom in the first apartment to the left (for those of you who know it, Apartment 410), and removal of the step up to the Penthouse Apartment and step down to the living room. We’re thrilled with the results!
Consistent with the work on the first and third floors, the scope of renovation for the fourth floor also included reinforcement of the floors and new tile throughout, a completely new HVAC system and electrical work throughout the space, and new lighting. And like the other floors, the style and feel still holds the integrity and historical aspects of the building, while offering cleaner lines and greater ease of use for our guests.
We are more than ready to unpack and get the apartments up and running, as we will be welcoming guests early next month. We’ve got lots to do between now and then, but we’ll be ready! And we’re thrilled to be able to share these updates live and in person with guests attending our UW Rome Center Celebration from June 16-18, 2023, where everyone will have a chance to tour the Penthouse Apartment and its beautiful terrace overlooking Campo de’ Fiori—offering an unparalleled view of the city line including St. Peter’s Basilica and the Janiculum Hill.
To learn more about the UW Rome Center Celebration, please click here! We’d love to have you join us to celebrate not only the completion of the renovations, but also to celebrate the history and legacy of more than 35 years of the University of Washington in Rome.
“We have learned a lot about invertebrates and the ecology of what’s going on in the Mediterranean regarding climate change.”
-Giovana Ramos
In November 2022, Governor Jay Inslee made a surprise visit to the UW Rome Center. During his visit, Governor Inslee interviewed Kenneth Sebens, Professor of Biology in the UW Department of Biology and Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences in the UW College of the Environment, and Giovana Ramos, a senior at the University of Washington studying Biology (Physiology), about a new study abroad program in Rome.
The Ecology of the Mediterranean Sea (Biology), the first UW Study Abroad program to be sponsored by the Department of Biology in Rome, offered 15 UW students the opportunity to take courses on the Ecology of the Mediterranean Sea, Science Writing: The Environment, and Introduction to Italian during the Autumn 2022 quarter. Students participated in six field trips to coastal locations, including snorkeling and underwater photography.
Amity Neumeister, UW Rome Center (UWRC) Resident Director, shares about her recent visit to Cività di Bagnoreggio with UWRC alumna Leah Martin ’97 to meet with the husband of the late Astra Zarina, founder of the UW Rome Center.
The first time I visited Cività di Bagnoreggio, I was on a holiday break from my study abroad program in Siena. My father and stepmother had come to visit for Christmas and we spent several days driving around Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio, discovering interesting towns to explore for the afternoon, getting lost in the beauty and intrigue of this foreign land that was already starting to feel like home. We set our sights one day on Cività di Bagnoreggio.
Walking up the bridge
After parking our car before the long bridge up to the tiny town that sits perched on top of a plateau of volcanic tuff (“tufo” in Italian) overlooking the Tiber river valley, we traversed that long bridge up to the town. As we entered into the main piazza of Cività, I remember looking to my right and being blown away by a sign that said (among other things) “Università di Washington”. While I wasn’t a Husky at the time—I had opted to go to University of Puget Sound in Tacoma for my undergraduate studies—I distinctly remember being struck by this coincidence, wondering who, what, when and how there was a connection between the massive UW and this little, tiny hilltop town in the middle of Italy, thousands of miles away from Seattle. We didn’t have cell phones or regular access to the internet in those days, so those questions remained with me for quite some time.
Fast forward five years, and I’ve completed my MBA at UW (now finally a Husky), and I’m working at the UW School of Medicine. One of my colleagues mentions to me one day that his daughter, Lauren Easterling, is doing an internship at the University of Washington Rome Center. I remember asking myself, How did I not know the UW had a Rome Center? (even though I had lived less than a mile from it after I ended my study abroad program and moved to Rome for a bit before returning back home).
Leah Martin (left), Amity Neumeister (right)
And we fast forward again to three weeks ago, when I had the opportunity—now as Resident Director of the UW Rome Center—to go back to Cività for the first time since that first venture long ago when I was at university and to meet Anthony (Tony) Costa Heywood, husband of the late Astra Zarina, founder of the UWRC. Over the years, I’ve heard lots of stories about the history, vision, challenges, influence and ultimately unparalleled legacy of Professor Zarina. Knowing that her husband Tony, who helped Zarina design and renovate the UWRC in the early 1980s, was just a little over an hour away with answers to questions I still had from my very first visit to Cività felt like pieces to a puzzle that hadn’t been accessible before Leah Martin, a 1997 alumna of the UWRC, stopped by to see the renovated UWRC last month. Leah mentioned that she might go visit Tony, and I jumped on the opportunity, inviting myself to join her on her tip. So up we drove up those windy roads to Cività to see that marvelous tiny town once again, and once again I saw the sign that proudly says “Università di Washington” in the main square.
Inside Tony and Astra’s home
But more importantly this time, I got to traverse the bridge and make a connection with Tony, who’s one of only now seven permanent residents of the town. Having no phone number or email for Tony, we went unannounced and had no idea what to expect. We found his front door literally open (the Cività Institute that Tony co-founded with Astra was hosting an educational program that week), and after calling his name for a bit and waking him up from a nap, he welcomed us into his home that he had shared with Astra since the early 1960s. I saw signs of Astra’s influence and legacy on the UWRC everywhere in his home—but most immediate and striking were the same red architect lamps that we still have at the UWRC. Tony shared stories of Astra and the UWRC, and Leah and he reminisced about her study abroad experience in Rome, driving up to Cività with Astra as a bossy copilot by her side, having elaborate dinners Astra cooked for the students in her effort to introduce her students fully to the culture and traditions of the Italian people, only occasionally washing their clothes in the public wash basins carved out of the same tufo upon which the town sits.
View from Harry Styles’ home
It’s a bridge I’ve wanted to cross for a long time since I became the Resident Director in 2015. Perhaps not by coincidence, my father and stepmother are visiting again this week, and I’ve asked Tony if we could come up again for another visit. I look forward to learning a little bit more again this time about Tony’s life and Astra’s legacy to the University of Washington.
Tory Brundage, UW College of Education, shares about Education Rome, a three-week study abroad program that focuses on gender, multiculturalism and education in Italy.
Studying in Rome
Education Rome aims to help students develop a better understanding of how, as social constructs, gender and multiculturalism have some roots in Italian history. That history helps analyze modern-day social issues, with particular focus on issues of education, in Italian society. Students engage in field research and photo elicitation to explore historical, contemporary, and artistic concepts of gender and race. This was the third year that we have run the program and we intend to go back to Rome a fourth time next summer.
This year we took 14 students to Rome. It was an incredibly diverse cohort with 10 participants coming from the Brotherhood Initiative, a program that serves Black, Latino, Native, Pacific Islander and Southeast Asian male undergraduates. Additionally, the group had students from all class standings as well as from a wide range of majors – education, public health, business, environmental studies, engineering, informatics, life sciences, etc.
Group photo
My personal favorite memory from this year’s trip was taking the students on a street art walking tour in the Ostiense neighborhood. It was a good way to get off the beaten path in Rome by exploring art and political commentary that you definitely won’t see in the Vatican Museums. There was a stretch that included depictions of influential people for each letter of the alphabet. One was an American rapper that many students immediately recognized and the excited discussion that followed was an absolute joy to witness. The students were clearly having fun and made connections across the globe as well as across course themes in a unique and adventurous way.
Visiting the Colosseum
In addition to the street art walking tour, we visited the Vatican Museums, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Palpatine Hill, the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center, and La Sapienza, University of Rome.
UW Alumni Tours, the travel program of the UW Alumni Association, was delighted to visit the UW Rome Center during a recent three night stay in Rome as part of ‘A Portrait of Italy’ tour.
Touring the UW Rome Center
Amity Neumeister, Resident Director of the UW Rome Center, greeted the group of 14 UW alums and friends and gave them an overview tour of the recent renovations to the UW Rome Center. The group was excited to see the various classrooms, along with the lovely terrace overlooking the Campo de’ Fiori, once a flower market of historical Rome. The travelers, with UW degrees ranging from Business Administration to Aeronautics & Astronautics to Microbiology, were impressed by the study abroad opportunities for current UW students. A few UW alums mentioned being tempted to re-enroll at the UW in order to spend more time at the UW Rome Center!
Dinner in Rome
Following the tour, the group enjoyed a walking tour of the surrounding area by a UW affiliated instructor at the UW Rome Center, Mariella Mastrogiacomo, an archeologist who has worked on excavations in Rome and its suburbs. Seeing the exact place where Julius Caesar was assassinated was a highlight of the walk!
The evening ended with a gastronomic event at Osteria Romana de Simmi. Mamma Mia! The multi-course dinner with local specialties was incredible.
The group regrettably said goodbye to Roma and departed for the hilltop village of Orvieto.
Hometown: Seattle, Washington Class Standing: Freshman Major: Engineering Study abroad program: Freshmen Study Abroad: Travel Writing in the Eternal City Destination: Rome, Italy
Tell us about your background.
I am from Seattle. I went on a study abroad trip to Barcelona with my sister the summer after my freshman year of high school. Other than that and a couple of family trips to Canada, and one to Mexico, I had never been abroad before studying in Rome.
Describe your study abroad program in a few sentences.
This program is a writing program in Rome, but much of the journey was about learning how to be travelers rather than tourists. We spent almost every morning going somewhere new and exciting- Trevi Fountain, churches, the Pantheon, the Forum and so much more, and the afternoons and evenings were time for us to explore the city on our own. Two weeks was the perfect amount of time for me, and it was an amazing opportunity to meet people I would be able to see around campus- before even getting to UW. The trip was led by Shawn Wong, an amazing professor and person, and Lauren Easterling, from UW Study Abroad. They know Rome very well and led us through all the highlights.
What was something unexpected that you got out of the experience?
I wasn’t expecting to feel so independent while in Rome. It was an amazing way to explore my independence and learn who I wanted to be before the pressure of starting my freshmen year at the University of Washington. Additionally, I really learned what it meant to be a traveler rather than a tourist, and I realized that I really enjoyed being a traveler (as opposed to a tourist).
Do you have a favorite memory from your time in Rome?
Professor Shawn Wong took us to Giardino degli Aranci, orange tree gardens with the most spectacular view. Just sitting, overlooking the view, surrounded by new friends was so peaceful, and I look forward to going back one day. While we were there I, along with a couple of my peers, participated in Tai Chi with some locals. Never before have I felt so relaxed.
What building or site first comes to mind when you think of Rome?
Before going to Rome I thought of the Colosseum, but now I definitely think of Giardino degli Aranci and Villa de’Este.
Three UW alumni reflect on what they remember most from studying in the Eternal City and how their experiences at the UW Rome Center impacted their career trajectories.
Elizabeth Cooperman: Freelance Editor and Writer
Elizabeth Cooperman
What do you remember most about your time in Rome?
Rome is a swirl to me. When I think of it, I’m standing in front of a small marble statue of the goddess Diana in the Capitoline Museum trying to draw her hundreds of breasts in my spiral notebook, and the next moment I’m eating zucchini flowers stuffed with mozzarella and anchovy (a delicacy the likes of which I’ve never before tasted), and the next I’m at a flea market purchasing a single tear drop-shaped crystal from a deconstructed chandelier which the seller has laid down nonchalantly all over the street (as if it weren’t a miraculous sight), and then I’m back at the apartment with classmates and we’re sipping wine and discussing classical mythology, the zodiac, painting, and the soul, when finally I find myself in a dark piazza where children launch colorful spinnerets into the sky. Rome is this kaleidoscope of images and tastes and sensations that I can’t tweeze apart—and wouldn’t.
Have you stayed connected to the UW Rome Center since studying abroad?
Yes, so connected that I’ve studied at the Rome Center three times! UW’s creative writing program in Rome is intentionally set up to accommodate learners of all levels, with beginners writing alongside highly accomplished poets and scholars. In fact, it’s one of the most unique learning communities I’ve ever experienced. I first attended the Rome Center in 2005 as a complete beginner, second in 2009 as a graduate student, and third in 2017 in a teaching role, and each time my relationship to writing and to Rome was forged and re-forged. I cannot imagine a more beautiful classroom, by which I mean the illustrious halls of the Palazzo Pio, which houses the Rome Center, and Mama Roma herself. I guess I just can’t stay away!
How has the UW Rome Center impacted your life?
I return again and again to the writing methods I learned in Rome—namely the emphasis on looking and listening. As conceived by Richard Kenney, the program urges you to “keep your pencil on the city” and not agonize over your own daily mark-making. It’s not about you! It’s about Rome. And that’s oddly freeing. There will be time enough after you leave Rome to revise your work, but while you’re abroad, try to really engage the city. This is a way of approaching the discipline of writing that I still practice, much like drawing or painting en plein air, but it’s also (a wise and challenging) way of approaching life. Metaphorically speaking, I continue to try hard to keep a pencil on all the cities that matter to me.
Too, in a very real way, I’m sure I would not be a writer at all if not for the UW’s program at the Rome Center. That program convinced me I’d love to get an MFA in Creative Writing, which I received from the University of Washington in 2010. Afterwards I went on to co-edit an anthology of brief prose with UW professor David Shields, co-author a book about Rome, The Last Mosaic, with poet Thomas Walton, and compose my own collagistic personal essay named after a painting by Picasso, Woman Pissing, which comes out this fall from University of Nebraska Press. In the second two books I write frequently about visual art. Of course, it was in Rome that I began working in an ekphrastic mode. I’ll never forget the time at the Galleria Borghese that poet William Camponovo and I spent forty minutes writing and talking about Bernini’s statue of Pluto and Prosperpina. We were studying the marble figures so closely that it took us forty minutes to make a single circle around them.
Tell us more about the book you co-authored about Rome, The Last Mosaic.
My co-author, Thomas Walton, and I created this book after spending summer 2017 at the UW Rome Center. Thomas and I engaged the writing prompts for the UW class every day and subsequently came home to the United States with notebooks full of descriptions of ancient sculptures, street performers, nuns feeding turtles, etc. Rather than let these prose sketches rot away in our notebooks, we decided to excavate our notebooks and expand our favorite sketches. In part, we were still so in love with Rome and hesitant to leave it behind. Making the book was a way of lingering in Rome—lingering in the art museums, the cafes, and especially on the city streets—months after returning to Seattle. We fashioned our co-authored book in the form of a mosaic, which we agreed suits the city itself, with its ruins, headless statues, wobbly cobbles, broken arches, and river worming through it all. The Last Mosaic is a poetic guidebook to the city and very much our love song to Rome.
Theresa Maloney: Assistant Director, Foster School of Business’ Global Business Center
Theresa Maloney
What building or site first comes to mind when you think of Rome?
My absolute favorite site in Rome is one shared by many…Piazza Navona! To me Piazza Navona feels like the very heart of the city and is always abuzz with Romans on their nightly stroll, or tourists snapping a photo in front of the famous Four Rivers Fountain by Bernini. Since Piazza Navona is just a short walk from the UW Rome Center, I visit it often when leading study abroad programs to Rome to soak up the sounds and energy of the city.
What study abroad program did you participate in at the UW Rome Center?
As a UW undergraduate, I participated on the Art History Seminar in Spring Quarter 2010 and I was also the UW Rome Center Student Intern from 2012-2013. Both those experiences allowed me to dive into the rich history of art and architecture found around every corner of the city. Since 2015, I have organized and led many Foster undergraduate study abroad programs to the UW Rome Center, helping over 160 UW students study business in Rome. My favorite part of my job is getting to be in Rome with students and helping them as they navigate the city.
Did your experience in Rome prepare you for your current role?
My first experience in Rome on the Art History Seminar has shaped my whole life. By getting to build deep connections with the Program Faculty and Staff Directors (thank you Lauren Easterling, and Stuart and Estelle Lingo!), I was able to find my way back to the UW Rome Center for the Student Internship at the end of my UW undergraduate degree. That experience of living in Rome for a whole year showed me that a career in international education was possible. I am now 9 years into my career in international higher education and I literally would not be where I am today without that first study abroad at the UW Rome Center in 2010. I love supporting students (and faculty) as they explore Roman culture, learn about business in Italy, and fall in love with Rome like I did on my own study abroad experience.
Tell us about your job at the Global Business Center at the UW Foster School of Business.
At the Foster School of Business’ Global Business Center, I advise students on undergraduate business-focused study abroad programs, support a range of programs that allow over 350 UW undergraduates to study business abroad each year, and I have the great pleasure of organizing and leading Faculty-Led Programs including the Foster Rome Program every summer. Needless to say, I love my job and the opportunity to help make students’ time abroad as enriching and impactful as possible!
Alongside my work at the Foster Global Business Center, I am also currently pursuing my MBA at Foster. To finish out my MBA, I am exploring another part of Europe by participating on an MBA Exchange at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark.
Do you have a favorite memory from your time in Rome?
One of the great pleasures of Rome is enjoying the place without too much of a plan—it’s best to look for small secrets (I recommend something along the lines of Bernini’s Blessed Ludovica Albertoni off in a quiet part of Trastevere) and let life happen around you. Drink an espresso; explore a basilica. Too many visitors try to do too much. They rush to see the big sights and miss the rhythm of the city and wonders that inhabit every corner.
The Pantheon, with its oculus open to the sky and (false) inscription that Marcus Agrippa built it (well, the original; this remodel was built by the architect emperor Hadrian), is my favorite place to return over and over in Rome. I first went there when I was a freshman in high school, studying Latin and obsessed with ancient Roman history and mythology. During my time writing at the UW Rome Center, a group of us visited the building and a bird that circled inside the dome ended up in all of our poems in some form. The massive domed building is a skull and an eye, a representation of the divine in the human and, I think, the most wonderful ancient structure to have survived to the present day.
No surprise, one of my favorite memories in Rome happened here. I was walking through the city with a group including my friend/mentor/professor Richard Kenney and (my now wife) Radha Marcum, when it began to rain. It hit me. I turned to them and shouted, “To The Pantheon!” We rushed to the building and, once inside, stood under the oculus where we felt the rain coming down through the vast space of the dome onto our faces. It was a brief moment of communion with the beauty of the natural world and human creativity. It didn’t last long, however, before an angry group of guards shooed us away and put up a barrier to keep tourists out of the shower. But it was enough to last a lifetime. I only hope to be there one day for a rare snowstorm.
What did you study at the UW Rome Center?
I studied poetry and creative writing at the UW Rome Center for three summers with Professor Richard Kenney, a MacArthur Fellow and winner of the Rome Prize in Literature. The dynamics varied each year: The first year, another grad student and I mentored and taught undergrads. The second and third were more of a convocation of grad students in the UW MFA program, a few undergrads, and professional writers and artists. Studying poetry in Rome encompasses far more than simply putting words on a page, especially under the auspices of a mind as curious, keen, and far-reaching as Kenney’s.
We immersed ourselves in all aspects of the city—we learned about architecture and art history, took cooking lessons using fresh produce gathered from the market in Campo dei Fiore, spoke Italian with local baristas, toured catacombs and museums, read poems at Keats’ grave, performed Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar on the banks of the Tiber, and discussed the dynamics of writing that attempts to capture all this. In short, we drank in all we could of the Eternal City. And, most importantly, we wrote every day, exercising our ability to observe and imagine. The highlight of each day was gathering together to share and dig into our writing.
How did studying in Rome influence your career?
Though it was not required, the Rome program was an essential part of my Master in Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from UW. It gave me the chance to study with Professor Kenney in a relaxed environment while also putting more intensity into the craft of writing. The program gave me insight into the wide scope of art and history and immersion in another culture. It gave me depth (and a good dose of Italian levity). I have never been the same since. The ability to focus on writing here gave me more confidence in my work and encouraged me to travel more, see more, experience more.
All of this has been invaluable in my career as a professional editor and publisher. I have more compassion when I work with writers and I am more willing to take chances with new and young writers thanks to my experience mentoring students in Rome. On a strictly professional level, I have used my experiences living in Europe and speaking Italian to make connections with European colleagues and outlets over the years. I would not be the professional or the person I am today without this program. It is one of the highlights of my life. The Rome Center gives you the space to work through ideas in a city full of creativity and human achievement and it gets you collaborating with inquisitive and accomplished minds in a wide range of disciplines.
Tell us more about your career in editing, writing, and magazine publishing.
I have been lucky to combine my two great passions, writing and wilderness, in my career. As a contract editor and freelance writer, I must piece together several jobs. Some of them, editor-in-chief of Elevation Outdoors and Outdoor Retailer magazine, function more like full-time jobs. I fill that in with freelance writing opportunities—such as recounting time skiing with Sami people, who towed us in via snowmobile in Lapland for Skiing magazine or providing National Geographic online with an ongoing series of the world’s greatest hikes—that fulfill my desire for adventure. As an editor, I see myself as both a curator and a mentor, bringing together a diverse range of voices in a publication and helping them do the best work they can on the stories they most want to tell. Running the Outdoor Retailer trade show Dailypublication, I am responsible for publishing a 70-page print magazine every day for three days of a national trade show and getting all of that content to the printer by 5 p.m. each afternoon. It’s an exercise of finding focus and joy in chaos and that, of course, reminds me of the streets of Rome.
I have also founded my own publishing company, creating print magazines, online content, and photography and film for clients including the towns of Dillon and Silverthorne, Colorado. I was once told that all I would be able to do with an MFA in creative writing was “wait tables.” I have rejected that cynicism in my career, proving that this degree also gave me the leverage and authority to make the money to raise a family and travel the world. I have not had the time I would like to focus on the creative side as I raise my kids, but I have had work noted in Best American Essays and by the Colorado Council on the Arts and I am busy on a narrative podcast project tentatively titled “Collision: The long-lost story of the worst shipwreck in history, the American experience, and a family mystery.”
Would you like to share a story about the UW Rome Center? Email uwoga@uw.edu.
We are delighted to share with you the completed third floor of the UW Rome Center! Back in action as of January, the floor houses three classrooms, two studios, one seminar room, the Business Center, library and the UWRC office. Similar to the first floor work, the scope of renovation for the third floor included reinforcement of the floors and new tile throughout, a completely new HVAC system and electrical work throughout the space, new lighting, new AV equipment in all of the classroom space and new bathrooms. We also completed an incredible restoration of the frescoed ceilings in two of the classrooms, which are stunning!
With this phase of the project, we’ve moved some things around to make better use of the space. Our office is now in the courtyard-facing former Apartment 312 space, and we’re enjoying the clean lines of the new space, as well as air conditioning in the office for the first time in the history of the UWRC—especially now that it’s already in the 90s! Some other changes to the floor include transformation of the former Faculty office then library to our new Business Center for use by both students and faculty. Directly below, the former storage space then computer lab is now the library—a much better use of the space given the configuration of the space and low ceilings.
We would like to extend a very special thanks to Madison Frederick, Franco Carlos and Hope Morris, students in our Spring 2022 Rome in Residence program, who volunteered their time throughout the quarter to unpack all the books and organize the new library! Also, a special thanks to Carolina Semenchuk who volunteered her time helping us unpack the office and other parts of the third floor!
Completion of the third floor marks the end of the renovation work for our educational space. This leaves just the fourth floor to complete, which will include four faculty apartments and our intern apartment! We are looking forward to this work starting soon and will keep you posted with updates as the work progresses.
We’ve moved in! After nearly three years of major renovation work of the first floor, we are thrilled to share that the project is nearly complete. In August, we starting moving in, which required some major dusting off of all our furniture that has been in storage during the course of the renovation work. The classrooms are all situated and perhaps equally exciting is that we’ve welcomed our first students back in September. We are happy to be hosting the Swiss School of Management in our new seminar room overlooking Campo de’ Fiori, and another affiliate program in a few of the other classrooms. What a change it is to see the space complete transformed and now in use!
Since the last update, all new audiovisual equipment was installed in all of the classrooms, seminar rooms and the Conference Room. We have brand new screens and projectors in the classrooms and Conference Room, and smart boards in the two seminar rooms. Reviews of the faculty and students thus far is that everything is working like a dream! We’ve temporarily set up the computer lab in the Exhibit Space, and the communal kitchenette is proving to be a popular place for students to take a break between classes and eat lunch.
We’ve had a few funny mishaps as we’ve gotten to know the space and learn how to use it, including a student pulling on the emergency cord in a restroom, making us realize the importance of good signage in strategic places. Thank goodness we had already tested out that cord and knew how to turn off the emergency alarm. (Spoiler alert…one of the faculty pressed the fire alarm before we had a chance to control the situation, so it was a new lesson for us learning how to deal with a false fire alarm.) Rest assured, we’re all up to speed now though!
Some finishing touches are still being worked on, including restoration of the ceiling in the faculty apartment living/dining room (former Classroom C), as well as installation of the bathroom accessories and the wardrobe in the bedroom. As soon as this work is completed, we’ll be setting up the apartment and looking forward to hosting a faculty member there this coming January when our UW programs are scheduled to return to Rome.
We just hosted our first event here in two years this last Monday, which was a lovely way to informally inaugurate the new space. Ryan Calo, Professor of Law, was in town for the “Human After All: Data Protection in Policing” conference and sponsored a reception for conference attendees in our Conference Room and Seminar Space overlooking Campo de’ Fiori. It was great to show off our new space to this group!
On the third floor, the renovation work is moving full steam ahead and we are on schedule to complete the work by the end of the year. The floors are completely tiled, electrical and HVAC work is nearly complete, new lighting has been mounted in some of the classrooms, and the new Administrative Office in former Apartment 312 is nearly ready for us to move into (ahead of schedule!). We’re also ready to order all new audiovisual equipment and computers for this floor, thanks to receipt of an STF Grant earlier this year.
Stay tuned for more updates on the third floor soon, as well as news when we begin the fourth floor, which will soon be transformed into five beautiful apartments for our faculty and intern.
