Study Abroad in Montepulciano, Italy, Summer 2016
DESCRIPTION
General Description
The Montepulciano, Italy, Summer Study Abroad program provides students with the
opportunity to take lower and upper division course work in historic Tuscany.
Montepulciano is centrally located between Rome and Florence with accessible bus and rail
transportation to the rest of Italy. Kennesaw State University has overseen this study abroad
program, a consortium among Georgia College & State University, Georgia Southern University,
Kennesaw State University, Valdosta State University, and Georgia Highlands.
Description of Program
The Montepulciano, Italy, Summer Study Abroad program is a five-week program in
Montepulciano, Italy. The program is built around a general education study abroad model so
that students are given a variety of choices to take general education and some upper-division
elective courses in the humanities, social sciences, arts, and natural sciences.
Students take two courses for four days a week. On Mondays and Wednesdays, students are in
a traditional classroom for 2.5 hours during the morning and early afternoon, while on
Tuesdays and Thursdays, they travel to the Vatican City, Rome, Florence, Pisa, Siena, and Assisi
for all day field trips. (Tuesday field trips are spent with morning classes, while Thursday field
trips are devoted to the afternoon classes.) At the conclusion of the Thursday field trip, faculty
and students either return to Montepulciano or they are free to travel to a new destination for
a three-day weekend (not included in the program).
Program fees pay for faculty and student airfare, housing, transportation to field trip sites,
museum fees, and at least four meals a week in a local trattoria. Faculty are also given a small
stipend to help pay for additional costs, such as breakfast and lunch. Faculty and students live
in historic apartments within the walls of the city. Faculty are given single apartments (unless
they bring family), while students share a room in one to three bedroom apartments. Each
apartment has modern amenities, including modern cooking appliances.
The approximate dates for the two summer sessions are as follows: Summer Session I: May 12June 19, 2016; Summer Session II: June 23-July 31, 2016.
Description of Students
The majority of students are sophomores or rising juniors. (We may have a few seniors who
have signed up on the program as a graduation present.) Although many students will take
classes to fulfill requirements of the major, most are taking the courses to fulfill a general
education requirement or a free elective within the major.
For many students, this is their first trip abroad for an extended period of time. As such, the
program provides an excellent opportunity for them to become acquainted with international
travel and life. Montepulciano itself is a small, safe hilltop town with residents looking out for
our USG students, whom they have seen arrive each summer since 2000. Field trips offer
students an opportunity to explore larger cities within the safety of their class, while three-day
weekends allow them to explore Italy with newly made friends.
Description of Classes
Each faculty member offers two classes, a lower-division General Education course, and an
upper-division course in their discipline that can be taken by students both in and outside the
major. (Remember, most students in an upper-division class will be taking the course as a free
elective.) Courses in the morning run from 9:00-11:30 and in the afternoon from 1:00-3:30.
Faculty are required to provide 37.5 contact hours with 5 contact hours per course per week in
a traditional classroom; 4 contact hours per field trip per week (field trips receive half credit for
each hour); 2.5 hours for a course meeting during orientation; and additional hours for student
work done prior to departure. (Most faculty require students to complete some assignments
before departure.)
Ideally, at least one of the courses should have content that relates to Italy, though we do not
expect faculty to be Italian scholars in their subject area. The courses should be rigorous, and
they should have broad appeal to a variety of majors.
Field Trips
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, faculty and students take field trips to nearby cities. These include
two field trips each to Florence and Rome, a separate field trip to Vatican City, and single field
trips to Siena, Pisa, and Assisi.
Faculty and students all travel to the same city, though they may not visit the same sites. As a
group, we will visit the same sites in Vatican City, Siena, Pisa, and Assisi, though students will be
grouped with their individual classes. Faculty members choose the sites for the two trips to
Florence and Rome.
Faculty should expect to plan three to four site visits per field trip, and they should expect to
combine the site visits with lecture and group activity. (Upon visiting a particular site, a faculty
member might introduce the site to the student, say two or three things about the site, before
asking an individual or group to make a small presentation.)
This year’s field trip schedule is as follows:
Week 1
T - Siena
Th- Vatican
Week 2:
T – Florence
Th - Pisa
Week 3:
T – Rome
Th- Florence
Week 4:
T - Assisi
Th – Rome
Week 5:
T – Faculty Choice
Th – Faculty Choice
Faculty Selection
Because the Montepulciano, Italy, Summer Study Abroad program is shared among a
consortium of USG institutions, faculty members are selected based on a number of criteria
including the following:
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Completed application with full syllabi.
Availability of general education and upper-division courses that students are likely to
take and can take without pre-requisites.
Availability of courses to a majority of students at each of the consortium institutions.
(Courses should be able to transfer across the consortium institutions.)
Attractiveness of courses (including titles and descriptions) to students within and
outside the major.
Degree of integration with scheduled field trips.
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The balance and variety of course offerings.
We also try to balance new faculty with old faculty when possible. Finally, we look at a faculty
member’s ability to recruit.
What does this mean? When the site directors and representatives from the participating
schools choose faculty, they look at completed syllabi; the course offerings for general
education selections and for upper-division selections that require few pre-requisites, if any;
faculty representation for each school; the balance of new and old faculty; and the faculty who
have a strong history of recruitment, a strong recommendation from a study abroad advisor, or
a strong recruitment plan.
FACULTY EXPECTATIONS
Faculty Members are expected to do the following:
Recruitment
1. Ten students from an institution cover a faculty member’s costs for airfare, lodging, per
diem, and meals. (Georgia Southern asks its faculty to recruit 12 students.) The ten
students DO NOT have to be enrolled in the faculty member’s course(s); they can be
enrolled in any courses in the program so long as they are students from the faculty
member’s institution.
Please note:
a. If some schools enroll 11 or 12 students per faculty member, faculty from
other schools may be able to participate with 6 or 4 students.
b. The program is concerned with costs, not course enrollments. If your course
has only two or three students, but eight students from your institution have
enrolled in the program, you are still eligible to go.
c. The 10 to 1 policy makes it crucial that faculty recruit for the WHOLE
program, not just their courses.
d. Faculty who barely miss the 10 to 1 criterion may be able to participate by
being given extra responsibilities, receiving reduced per diem, or paying a
portion of their own expenses.
Faculty members are expected to actively recruit for the whole program. While each
faculty member will be recruiting for his or her own course(s), he or she must recruit for
the entire program. Remember that program enrollment, not course enrollment,
determines whether a faculty member is able to participate.
Benefits and Salaries
2. Faculty (who recruit the minimum required numbers) will receive everything students
receive, plus a per diem. This includes:
a. Roundtrip airfare and accommodations.
b. The same meal package students receive.
c. A per diem amount, based upon how healthy the budget is, determined by
exchange rate fluctuations, total program enrollment, airfares, and other
program costs. We are hoping to provide a $55/day per diem.
3. Faculty salaries are not provided by the program. We’ve already said this twice. Instead,
salaries are negotiated separately with the faculty member’s home institution. Please
confer with your international advisor how you will be paid.
Classroom Expectations
4. Faculty teach each course twice a week in the classroom on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Morning classes run from 9:00-11:30 and afternoon classes are 1:00-3:30. Faculty are
expected to use the entire class time. (Projectors with speakers are available. There is
also an internet connection available at the primary school, though it rarely works.)
5. Although internet is available at Il Sasso and in the primary school, faculty should be
aware that access might be difficult for students. In short, work with your site directors
and experienced faculty to gain a sense of the amount and type of research students
can do in Montepulciano. Many faculty, for instance, require students to do much of
their research prior to their arrival in Montepulciano.
Fieldtrip Expectations
6. Faculty will lead fieldtrips twice a week: Tuesdays for morning classes; Thursdays for
afternoon classes. Work closely with your site directors and experienced faculty to plan
your fieldtrips. The fieldtrip schedule is as follows:
Week 1: Siena; Rome (Vatican)
Week 2: Florence; Pisa
Week 3: Rome; Florence
Week 4: Assisi; Rome
Week 5: Faculty Choice; Faculty Choice
7. Faculty are allotted 20 Euros per student for the trips to Florence and Rome and for the
two faculty choice trips. (The site directors will purchase tickets at the Vatican and in
Siena, Pisa, and Assisi since everyone will visit the same sites.) You may “bank” euros
for individual classes, using euros that are not spent on one day to pay for something
extra on a following day. However, you may not use the money allocated from one class
to pay for another. (Business services forbids this.)
Spousal Arrangements
8. Faculty who have spouses or others accompany them will be responsible for making all
arrangements and have to pay extra for all associated costs.. Spouses/others who
accompany or visit faculty will be accommodated at a rate to be negotiated with our
contacts in Montepulciano. All other costs, such as meals, airfare, travel passes, and
tours, will be priced individually for faculty interested in bringing another person along
for a portion of the program.
For the 2015 Summer Sessions, those costs included:
a. 19 Euros a day for each additional person. (Prices can change for larger
apartments that are available upon request. Please speak with Heike.)
b. 1 Euro a day city tax for each additional person.
c. One time charge of 15 Euros for towels and linens for each additional person.
d. 17.50 a day for dinners at the Trattoria di Cagnano. (This includes the
standard three course meal given that night to faculty and students, water,
and sitting fee. If a spouse or child orders separately from the menu, then
the Trattoria may charge additionally for water and a sitting fee.)
We are still negotiating with Il Sasso for this year’s prices, but they should not be more
than a euro more.
Faculty who bring spouses and children will need to inform Heike of the exact number
of people and exact dates their spouses and children will be staying in Montepulciano.
Send this information to Heike by the end of February. Her email is Heike@ilsasso.com.
Payment for the extra person, city tax, and linens will be due by the end of the third
week of the program.
Payment for the meals will be made directly to the Trattoria on the day of the meal.
Airline arrangements can be made through Livvy Lipson at Journey’s Unlimited. She can
be reached by email at livvy@journeysunlimited.net or by phone at 404-478-8888.
Spouses and children who accompany faculty on field trips must pay separately.
(Business Services have reported that faculty receipts that include tickets for spouses
and children present an auditing danger. They request that we keep all non-program
member expenses separate.)
Spouses and children can accompany faculty on the bus only when there is room. (If
there are no seats available, then spouses and children will need to take the train or
another means of transportation. If a few seats are available for a number of spouses
and children, then the different faculty can work an arrangement.)
9. There is no provision for childcare. The program cannot provide supervision for
children. For liability reasons, faculty must arrange supervision for children under the
age of 16.
Additional Information
10. Faculty are expected to accompany students on the flights to and from Europe. The
program budget depends upon group travel and group rates. It is not possible to
arrange individual travel itineraries for faculty members or students. Group fares
depend upon specific numbers traveling together and individuals traveling separately
impact group rates on which program costs are based. Most importantly, faculty are
needed to assist students – often first time international travelers – on the journeys to
and from Europe. Faculty members who wish to travel separately must first obtain
permission from the program director and site directors and are responsible for their
own travel arrangements.