{"id":29,"date":"2026-02-09T09:44:47","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T09:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/brunograzioli\/?page_id=29"},"modified":"2026-03-03T11:15:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T11:15:16","slug":"international-education","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/brunograzioli\/international-education\/","title":{"rendered":"International Education"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I consider myself a <em>product of study abroad<\/em>, as I spent long time in the U.K. and France during my university years as an English\/French double major. My career choices were strongly informed by my experience abroad and, as such, today\u00a0<strong>I\u00a0am a strong proponent of studying abroad and of helping students develop intercultural competence skills<\/strong>\u00a0(see page on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/bruno-grazioli\/intercultural-communication-competence\/\">Intercultural Communication &amp; Competence<\/a>). During my years at Smith College, I have been fortunate to find an Italian curriculum built around a rigorous Junior Year Abroad program, the oldest U.S. program in Florence and the second-oldest in Italy, which I directed in 2011\/12.<\/p>\n<p>One of the highlights of the Florence program\u00a0was the yearlong (credit-bearing)\u00a0<strong>internship in the early<\/strong><strong>-childhood education school system in Pistoia, where some students actively worked alongside Italian\u00a0<em>maestre<\/em>, shadowing and helping them once a week in the classroom<\/strong>. The video below shows students giving their final presentation and discussing challenges and rewards of their experience.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"JYA Pistoia Video\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/237227055?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In 2014\/\u201915 I returned to Florence for a 1-year appointment with\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ceastudyabroad.com\/explore\/discover-the-city\/florence\"><strong>CEA Study Abroad<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0<strong>In my capacity as\u00a0Academic Director\u00a0<\/strong><strong>of\u00a0the\u00a0Florence center, I interviewed, hired, trained, managed\u00a0and\u00a0supervised a team\u00a0<\/strong><strong>of 12 faculty members teaching\u00a0courses\u00a0in a variety of subjects\u00a0<\/strong>(Italian language, literature\u00a0and culture,\u00a0but also Art History, Sociology,\u00a0Social History,\u00a0Communication,\u00a0Food Studies, Sports Studies,\u00a0Economics, Marketing Management, etc.)\u00a0and also maintaining working\u00a0relationship\u00a0with U.S. faculty\u00a0members leading their custom\u00a0programs inFlorence.\u00a0<strong>I also served as Academic Dean for the 100+ students who attended the program each semester and, together with the Center Director, I worked on revamping and repackaging the entire course offerings<\/strong>\u00a0(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ceastudyabroad.com\/explore\/programs\/florence\"><strong>HERE<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Below is the video I created about the 2014 edition of \u201cCorri la vita\u201d (a charitable wask\/run organized yearly in Florence). This was used by the CEA Marketing Department for promotional purposes.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"CEA Florence at &quot;Corri la Vita&quot; (Sept 28, 2014)\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/107392146?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I consider myself a product of study abroad, as I spent long time in the U.K. and France during my university years as an English\/French double major. My&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4343,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-29","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/brunograzioli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/brunograzioli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/brunograzioli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/brunograzioli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/brunograzioli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/brunograzioli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/brunograzioli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29\/revisions\/221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/brunograzioli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}