Wanted in Rome is Italy's premier English-language news outlet. They recently interviewed me about Italy, education, and all things related.
WiR: What is your personal and professional experience with Italy?
SS: Before starting as president of The American University of Rome in August 2020, my experience with Italy was limited. In a previous role as professor and dean in Utah, I regularly taught a course on Italian cinema and had administrative oversight of a study abroad program in Siena. One of the most glorious weeks of my life, in fact, was an oversight trip that included several days of cycling around Tuscany. Before that, I had made a few trips to Italy as a student and tourist, including to Rome in 1979 and hitchhiking from Brindisi to France (via Yugoslavia, Greece, and Corfu) when I was very young and when hitchhiking was still considered OK. I’ll never forget the stunning countryside and the experience of meeting kind Italians from various regions and walks of life.
How did AUR cope with the COVID-19 crisis, what measures did it put in place, and were they successful?
AUR coped amazingly well. The sudden plunge into a crisis without existing processes or protocols was obviously a pressure cooker. Fortunately, my excellent leadership team quickly devised academic, technological, and security solutions that served us well for the entire year. Despite AUR’s decision to remain open for business with in-class teaching for the 2020-21 school year, we have had very few disruptions (mainly by governmental decree to close temporarily) and only a handful of infections. I’m delighted with the result and how the community supported our efforts and complied with the necessary protocols and interventions.
What do you think of online teaching, and do you think it could substitute “in-class“ lessons?
That’s a complicated question. Online delivery can be genuinely excellent for some institutions and for some disciplines - especially where learning is procedural and focused on information transfer. For AUR, however, our trademark educational experience and value proposition do not align well with the online medium. There are four key reasons: 1) our students want to be in Rome, not on a basement couch, to take direct advantage of the city’s on-site resources; 2) our educational value derives from the lateral learning that comes from small, discussion-based classes and close faculty-student mentorships; and 3) we value diversity and the learning that comes from the lively, and often edgy, interaction between students and faculty from across the globe; 4) we have many creative and experiential disciplines requiring on-site presence and/or access to equipment, such as filmmaking and digital media, studio art, archaeology, even language. It’s difficult to teach these courses in any meaningful way online.