Business and Food Cultures of Italy: Entrepreneurship, sustainability, and heritage in Florence and Tuscan parks
Course Details
Syllabus
Instructional Dates
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Travel Dates
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Credits
UEPP 437
Total Credits: 8
Gigi Berardi
Information Session Monday, Dec. 1 at 4pm in ES 72 for students in "accepted" and "committed" status
This multicultural and excursion-rich food business/planning program offers intensive study and numerous field trips in a major European business and architecture center—Florence, Italy, and the surrounding Tuscan countryside (including Bologna, Modena, and Siena) and marine parks. Study environmental, economic, and social movements (both classical and contemporary), agroecology, ecogastronomy, and design. Students study food cultures and entrepreneurship – and experience a uniquely sustainable food economy at Camporbiano in the Tuscan countryside. Practice design and experience language and culture at the Istituto Galileo Galilei, as well as authentic regional cuisine and cooking in Florence. Includes an excursion with recreational cycling to the Maremma regional and geothermal parks in Tuscany.
Please DO NOT make travel arrangements to travel to Italy until your program is confirmed for travel and you receive an official confirmation from the Education Abroad office.
- PowerPoint Presentation 2025
- Information Session Recording, Fall 2024
- Photos from 2025
- Photos from 2024
- Photos from 2023; Italy Map 2023—class highlights Credit: Chloe Unflat
- Photos from 2022
- Video from Summer 2018
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Program Highlights
- Experience lectures and excursions with Italian faculty (historians, architects, language and culture teachers, business owners)
- Experience Italian farm and home cooking in hands-on culinary intensives in Italy, the home of the “Slow Food” movement
- Visit Fiesole (Florence) Etruscan sites and ruins
- Visit San Gimignano in the Tuscan countryside
- Complete a course in Italian cooking
- Enjoy guided tours and museum visits, e.g., Palazzo Vecchio and Uffizi
- Practice sensory taste science of balsamic vinegars in Modena, Italy
- Study natural animal breeding and biodynamic farming
- Guest lectures
- Complete a program in language and culture at the Istituto Galileo
- Enjoy a sketching tour in Florence
- Enjoy the “Camporbiano” experience in integrated farm and food economies
- Visit the Mercato Centrale, and artisan food retailers
- Enjoy three days in the Maremma Regional Park (agritourism, cycling, swimming on the coast)
- In the Maremma, you will stay at Montebello villa with most meals provided
- Experience a geo-thermal hike and geo-thermal-powered craft foods
- Consider excursions to performances of dance, opera, and music in the palaces, courtyards, and centuries-old amphitheaters (optional)
- Participate in carbon offsetting at “Inspiration Farm” in Whatcom County (optional)
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Expectations of Participants
With or without reasonable accommodations, must be able to walk, sit, or stand for one to two hour stretches/day in museums and cultural sites, optional hiking. Weather is warm. In the Maremma National Park, several hours of cycling for one of the program days.
Refrigeration is available for the duration of the program.
Students must work with the WWU Disability Access Center, Wilson Library 170, (360) 650-3083, drs@wwu.edu. For service eligibility, a complete diagnostic description from a qualified professional is required. Specific accommodations or services are determined on an individual basis and are modified to meet the unique needs of the student and their academic experience. Accommodation policies and procedures are highly individualized and centered on self-advocacy, realistic self-appraisal, and student growth. Each quarter, students need to activate their approved accommodations for each class. Students choose which of their approved accommodations they want to activate for each class.
We strongly recommend that all students traveling on this Global Learning Program are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to maximize the safety of the student cohort. Staying up to date with COVID-19 vaccines remains the most important step to protect yourself and your community.
Participants are expected to abide by all attendance policies of the program, including those for classes and excursions, and to adhere to the program schedule. Since the programs are academic in nature, parents, friends, partners, and families are not permitted on any part of the Global Learning Program. Personal travel must be outside of the course dates and not conflict with coursework or excursion schedules. Travel plans should be vetted by faculty beforehand to ensure personal plans do not interfere with meeting the learning objectives of the course.
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