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When n Rome Anne Ellen Geller St. John’s University In July, Rome s hot . Very hot . In fact, wth afternoon temperatures rs- ng to 90 degrees or above, most tourst nformaton suggests that n July the cty s just too hot for comfortable sghtseeng . By the first of August the cty shuts down . Stores close, the streets empty of honkng cars and motorbkes, and everyone heads to Malta . But n the last weeks of July, local resdents have not yet left the cty, and n Rome lfe s lved, buoyantly, out on the streets . By day, nuns n deep gray and black habts rde bcycles along the streets by St . Peter’s Square . Lush wndowboxes, planters, and roof gardens are n full flower . Crowds of toursts lne up for the day’s Vatcan museum tckets, shaded by umbrellas . Mopeds and motorcycles fill the ar wth smog and nose . The outdoor mercato of Andrea Dora and Testacco smell of rpe local tomatoes, bulbous fennel, ples of zucchn flowers, fresh slced proscutto, and whole fish that are folded nto brown paper wth lemon slces and parsley . On Sundays, the Porta Portese flea market s dusty and stcky from the watermelon quarters that drp and leave trals of seeds . Throughout the cty, cold water flows from more than two hundred nason (“bg nose”) fountans (Donat, 2009) . In the early afternoon, apartment wndows are shuttered, stores close and resdents wat out the md-day heat . At dusk, bats fly across the sky above the Forum . The Trastevere neghborhood s strung wth lghts and filled wth processons for Festa de’ Noantr, n honor of the Madonna del Carmne . On street after street throughout the cty, the dnng rooms of trattoras are empty, but candlelt sdewalk tables covered n patterned plastc tablecloths or whte lnens are crowded, lvely, smoky and filled wth voces and laughter . Everyone drnks vno de casa rosso or banco and then strolls, lckng gelato as t melts down the sdes of cones . In the summers of 2007 and 2008 St . John’s faculty arrved n the cty n the mdst of all of ths and spent two weeks workng together at the unversty’s campus n the Prat secton of Rome as partcpants n a program that was half faculty wrtng retreat and half wrtng across the currculum faculty development workshop . When St . John’s first conceved of the Summer Faculty Wrtng Insttute, senor admnstrators hoped a summer wrtng retreat at the unvers- 155 Anne Ellen Geller ty’s Rome campus mght be entcng enough to convnce faculty to rethnk how they used wrtng n ther teachng . The admnstrators also magned faculty who traveled to the campus could become ambassadors, who would, based on ther own experences n Italy, actvely recrut students for study abroad, helpng to rase ther numbers . Further, they hoped travellng to Rome as students mght lead faculty to want to return to the Rome campus to teach . In November 2008, sx faculty who took part n the Wrtng Insttute and I presented at the Qunnpac Unversty Conference on Thnkng and Wrtng . After our presentaton an audence member rased hs hand and sad: “Don’t you feel as f your unversty s pushng Catholcsm by fundng faculty trps to Rome? I thnk ths s just another step toward losng your academc freedom .” Whle the faculty and I all thought hs concerns exag- gerated, he dd ask a better queston than he may have realzed: Just what was behnd the dea to hold ths faculty development program n Rome? In some ways, the answer s obvous . By stated msson, St . John’s Unver- sty s “Catholc, Vncentan, and metropoltan .” It’s not as f the faculty who spoke on the panel at Qunnpac are unaware of what t means to research and teach at a Catholc nsttuton n an era when the current Pope has called for Amercan Catholc nsttutons “to emphasze ther Catholcsm” (Banerjee, 2008) . St . John’s s — and wll always be — connected to the Vncentans, to the Vatcan and to the Pope . Our “campus” n Rome s actually a Vncentan resdence n whch some floors have been renovated to nclude classrooms and dormtory space . The buldng s stll partly nhabted by prests . The unversty’s msson has recently been revsed to reach beyond New York Cty’s five boroughs and now reads: “St . John’s s a metropoltan unversty . We benefit from New York Cty’s cultural dversty, ts ntellectual and artstc resources, and the unque professonal educatonal opportuntes offered by New York, Rome and other ctes throughout the world where our students study and serve” (St . John’s Unversty Msson Statement) . The unversty draws attenton n prnt and electronc materals to ts nterconnected campuses n New York — Queens, Staten Island, Manhattan, and Oakdale, — and one nternatonal campus n Rome, Italy . Indeed, when partcpants n the Summer Faculty Wrtng Insttute arrved n Italy they each receved lam- nated St . John’s dentficaton cards (just as any study abroad student would) mprnted wth “Rome Campus” and featurng the same pcture as the one on ther Queens or Staten Island, New York campus ID . The campuses are ths 156 Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad connected, down to level of the computer network and buldng access . It’s true that the focus of the St . John’s Unversty Summer Faculty Wrt- ng Insttute — wrtng and the teachng of wrtng — may not be academ- cally connected to the locale, the cty of Rome, n the ways some study abroad programs connect dscplnary content and geographcal locaton . And yet to see St . John’s Unversty’s ulteror motves for supportng ths program as based only n Catholcsm — or worse, converson — s to mss that where an nsttuton sends ts faculty and why t decdes to support faculty study abroad to certan locales — or certan ctes — may make more subtle aspects of nsttutonal msson, goals and values vsble to faculty n mportant, tangble ways that can later nform faculty and students’ teachng and learnng . Also, as other research studes — and our experences at St . John’s — reveal, creatng a scholarly, reflec- tve space for faculty to buld a learnng communty far from ther daly lves on a campus n the Unted States, whether t’s a research communty, or, n ths case, a wrtng communty, may be one of the best nvestments n faculty development and global educaton an nsttuton can make . Why Rome? It s easy to understand why, even beyond the power and reach of nsttutonal msson, St . John’s has nvested n Rome as one of ts premere study abroad stes . Rome s a cty one can enter and comfortably nhabt qute quckly, even as a newcomer, whch makes t deal for study abroad learnng . It s a safe cty (despte hype that pckpockets are everywhere), has a relable and navgatable publc transportaton system of underground trans and above ground buses, and, even wth the smog and the crazy traffic, t s walkable . Those n Rome desperate for fast food wll find McDonald’s (not sur- prsngly next to the largest tourst attractons), but the more tradtonal tempos of eatng n the cty mean students and faculty find few take-out cups of coffee and become accustomed to standng at bars to sp mornng espresso alongsde Romans . Restaurant dnners are slow and open-ended, wth multple courses served separately, so there s more mealtme for con- versaton, somethng unfamlar, but welcome, to many Amercans . Rome s nternatonally dverse cty . Vstors wth a varety of first lan- guages who try to communcate whle consultng dctonares are not only encouraged but often supported n ther attempts to ask questons n Italan . But even though language may not be a barrer to nteracton n the cty, 157 Anne Ellen Geller vstors from the Unted States, especally those who have never travelled nternatonally or not done so very often, can stll experence some palpable culture shock . For example, there are no twenty-four hour chan drug stores, no nformal, mpersonal CVSs or Walgreens, wthn Rome . Thus, St . John’s faculty member who forgot to pack deodorant had to order hs purchase (n Italan) from a whte-coated employee who sld open the after-hours front wndow of a pharmacy . Others had to adjust to askng for and not gettng ce n ther cold drnks, pushng open doors to find mxed gender bathrooms (even at the St . John’s campus) or not havng cell phones always at hand . Lvng across an ocean from what was famlar and beng confronted wth smple dfferences n culture led to lonelness, embarrassment, dscomfort and confuson — as well as self-reflecton, curosty and learnng . For the faculty members who had never studed abroad as students, these were par- tcularly eye-openng moments that left them experencng exactly what students studyng abroad do . Throughout Rome, mposng cultural nsttutons are juxtaposed wth the rhythms of everyday street lfe . Commuters wth brefcases and chldren wth schoolbags take the same mornng trans as toursts streamng to St . Peter’s . Art by Mchelangelo and Caravaggo s accessble n neghborhood churches . Rome’s hstory s so much older and so much deeper than that of Amercan ctes, or even many other European ctes, there s a palpable sense that no matter where one stands one s travellng through tme . The first day I ever spent n Rome, a colleague and I walked through the Jewsh Ghetto on our own, marvelng at the way centures of buldngs had lterally been bult around unmovable runs from more than two thousand years ago . Archaeologsts, I often say, find full-tme work n Rome, where careful excavatons are takng place under tents and yet n full vew . On a walkng tour, I lstened to a gude speak of how Rome has always been bult on exstng structures, and he ponted out the many churches wth pagan temples below and the scav below the Vatcan . There s a world below every buldng, the gude suggested, a world we stll may not even know about and may never know the truth about, lke whether St . Peter’s bones were really found under St . Peter’s Baslca . In Rome, there are lkely stll “patches of the subterranean cty, or rather ctes” (Weaver, 1985) we have not yet even learned about . In 2008, Maura Flannery, a faculty partcpant, was wrtng about the 158 Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad four dfferent layers of temples and churches at San Clemente . Wth Maura I began thnkng aloud about one of the goals of the nsttute: helpng faculty excavate the layers of ther teachng phlosophes and pedagoges to buld new phlosophes and pedagoges n place of and around the old . As drector of the Unversty’s Center for Teachng and Learnng, Maura could see the connecton I saw between the cty and our work wth faculty . Earler n that year’s nsttute, on a day when twelve of us were eatng lunch together, the senor faculty at the table began to tell stores of a St . John’s Unver- sty the younger faculty dd not know . They descrbed watchng as the nsttuton changed n unexpected ways and bult upon tself, and they explaned how the nsttuton had retaned some of what t had always been, through dfferent deans, dfferent strategc plans and dfferent tmes . In a cty where new was bult upon old, and the ancent sat comfortably (or uncomfortably) alongsde the contemporary, faculty partcpants had space and tme to reflect on the nsttutonal, scholarly and pedagogcal pasts ther presents are bult upon and ther futures as scholars and teachers could grow from . Travellng around Rome’s lt- eral, physcal layers outsde our classroom hours provded a metaphor for the more cerebral and emotonal exploraton of academc lfe that the formal and nformal work of the Summer Faculty Wrtng nsttute encourages . The Summer Faculty Writing Institute — A Writing Retreat and Writing Across the Curriculum Workshop Although I drect the Summer Faculty Wrtng Insttute, and I was nvted to take part n the first one sx weeks before my faculty poston offi- cally began, the plans for the retreat predated my arrval at St . John’s Un- versty . What I learned — after two Summer Faculty Wrtng Insttutes n Rome — was that the dea actually orgnated (n a “purely conceptual way”) n the mnd of one senor faculty admnstrator, James Benson, who emaled the provost and my senor colleague, the Drector of the Insttute for Wrt- ng Studes, sayng: “I am convnced that f faculty members spent a summer wrtng, wrtng, wrtng, . . . they would be more effectve at encouragng and teachng students to wrte n ther dscplnes” (J . Benson, personal communcaton, October 30, 2008) . He suggested creatng an opportunty for “wrtng, wrtng, wrtng” and “feedback, feedback, feedback” from “peers and wrtng counselors” (meanng the faculty affilated wth the Insttute for 159 Anne Ellen Geller Wrtng Studes) . He also suggested the envronment should be a “wrtng colony/workshop type of envronment away from campus, possbly abroad,” a suggeston heartly supported by the unversty’s Provost and Presdent . Whle many nsttutons — n the US and abroad (Moore, 2003, Grant and Knowles, 2000) — have begun to more regularly offer faculty wrtng retreats (Farr, Cavallaro, Cvl & Cochrane, 2009) or boot camps1 to encourage and support faculty wrtng, I know of no other faculty wrtng programs hosted by US nsttutons at ther nternatonal campuses . In suggestng a “wrtng colony/workshop type of envronment,” James Benson, now Vce Provost and Dean of Unversty Informaton Resources & Lbrares at St . John’s, was nvokng a long, romantc tradton of the secluson consdered necessary for soltary authorshp . As Jane Prto (2005) wrtes: “The appeal of wrters’ retreats and colones s that of peace and quet away from the melee, so that the creatve sprt can descend . At Yaddo, a wrters’ retreat, lunch s delvered n baskets to the wrters hard at work n ther cottages . Advertse- ments for such retreats promse remoteness, stllness and soltude” (p . 9) . Fc- ton wrters and poets who flock to Yaddo, the Vermont Work Center, or Bread Loaf, all well establshed Amercan wrtng retreats, find ths soltude, but they also find communal dnners, evenng readngs, opportuntes to network and collaborate wth other wrters, and even pck up softball games . Research on the processes of successful faculty wrters suggests access to a communty of colleagues s as mportant as soltude, so those nosy dnners and softball games may be mportant too . Sarah Moore (2003) notes those “wrtng as part of a communty of wrters are more lkely to learn faster about the conventons and challenges of wrtng, to support each other at tmes of block- age and to demystfy the process of wrtng by sharng each others’ successes and falures,” and she ponts out how such an “approach challenges many of the cultural and compettve conventons of academc lfe” (p . 334) . Or, as Barbara Grant and Sally Knowles (2000) wrte, “whle the act of wrtng s most often performed n prvate (hence perhaps the unrealstc deas about how others wrte), t may usefully be rethought as a socal act,” through “the lved experence of beng a member of a communty of wrters” (p . 10) . For: In ths dfferent, socal, scene of wrtng, the producton of text s experenced as a messy process of engagement wth the word and the world, and s ntegrally ted up wth revson and response . The rsk of ultmate exposure, whch may prevent us from ever startng to wrte, s pre-empted 160 Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad by multple exposures to others n the communty along the way . (p . 11) I have been struck by the fact that the earlest wrtng across the currculum efforts at Amercan nsttutons n the 1970s and 1980s often combned support for and encouragement of faculty wrtng wth collectve nqury around the teachng of wrtng .2 These efforts are now more often separated . Faculty attend the type of wrtng retreat or bootcamp descrbed above to work on ther own wrtng among ther scholar colleagues, and they attend wrtng or communcaton across the currculum workshops or nsttutes to consder ther teachng of wrtng among ther teacher colleagues3 . Thus the two types of learnng — learnng to be a more successful academc wrter oneself and learnng to be a more successful teacher of wrtng — are separated . And faculty find the roles they nhabt — scholar and teacher — splt, even as they are told these roles are and should be ntertwned . We knew we wanted faculty n the Summer Faculty Wrtng Insttute to feel we were encouragng them to brng these roles together . For both Summer Faculty Wrtng Insttutes, partcpants were flown to Rome, provded wth prvate accommodatons n a resdence, breakfast and lunch durng the week of the nsttute (or, as was the case n the second summer, a per dem for these meals) and a group welcome dnner . As an added ncentve, faculty could nvte famly members to jon them for the second week of the trp . Whle the unversty does not pay for arfare for these famly members, accommodatons are covered for famly members for the second week . The number of these guests vared by faculty person; whle some faculty nvted only a spouse (one faculty person used t as a ten-year annversary trp wth her husband), others had chldren jon come to Rome the second week . When one faculty person’s famly could not attend, that person asked to brng lfelong frends — a colleague who retred from hs department and the colleague’s wfe . In 2007, pre-trp preparaton was nformal, but n 2008 there were two sprng meetngs for partcpants . Pror to leavng for Rome, faculty were asked to gather a varety of materals (sample assgnments from ther own courses, artcles about teachng wrtng from journals n ther dscplnes, portons of the wrtng projects they would be sharng wth one another) . The purpose was to get faculty thnkng about ther own wrtng, how they teach wrtng, and ther colleagues’ wrtng and teachng . And as a way of encouragng fac- 161 Anne Ellen Geller ulty to experment further wth and utlze the course management software ste before arrvng n Rome, they were asked to post and respond to a varety of materals whch we referred back to often durng our Rome Insttute . For example: One faculty member who had posted an artcle about teachng wrtng n her dscplne realzed n the mddle of the week’s work n Rome that she could take on pedagogcal research n her own class smlar to that descrbed n the artcle . Another faculty member referred hs colleagues to uploaded wrtng assgnments and rubrcs he was already successfully usng . Durng the first five days n Rome faculty worked n small and large groups n mornng and afternoon workshops, and, n between, contnued to talk over lunch (See Appendx 1: The Workshop Schedule) . In addton to these workshops, faculty were dvded nto “wrtng groups,” and they met durng meals and evenng hours to further dscuss ther own wrtng . Also, every mornng before the begnnng of workshops, faculty had several hours to wrte . Faculty also contrbuted ther own scholarly and creatve nterests to the group . For example, toward the end of the 2008 Summer Faculty Wrtng Insttute, Lee Ann Brown, a faculty partcpant who s a poet, led the group n wrtng a collaboratve renga, a modern verson of a tradtonal Japanese lnked poem . We each wrote a haku from mages reconstructed from our lunch break . And then we each wrote two addtonal lnes about wrtng or the week’s learnng . That rhythmc lnkng of all our experences nsde the classroom at the Rome campus and outsde the campus n Rome tself, stays wth me . (See Appendx 2: Excerpt of Renga Roma) Many faculty who attended had known one another for years, but because faculty were together for a week, new relatonshps were also bult . Lke students who meet and come to know one another whle studyng abroad when they may not have been frends on campus, ths was made possble by beng more than 4,000 mles from the context n whch faculty usually nteracted — or ddn’t — wth one another . For the second week of the Insttute, two days of tourng for the entre group of faculty and famles are conducted by Otto Garca, a New York based Monsgnor who n the past has served on the St . John’s Unver- sty Board of Drectors . The energetc and enthusastc Monsgnor, whose love of Rome dates back to hs own days as a student at the Gregoran Unversty, leads both walkng and bus tours of the cty, and we are fortunate to have ths nsttutonal connecton who can ntroduce us to the cty on the ground . One day’s walkng tour begns wth an exploraton of St . Peter’s Baslca . 162 Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad A tour gude lke Monsgnor Garca can explan the sgnficance of each cha- pel, talk the group slowly around the Bernn alter wth ts Barbarn bees, and tell a bt of hstory about each nterred Pope . Once that walkng tour leaves the Vatcan, an ndependent country all ts own guarded by the Pon- tfical Swss Guard, Monsgnor Garca moves us through the sdestreets of the Va della Conclazone to the Tber, to lunch on hs favorte calzones near the Pantheon, and to drnk an after lunch coffee granta at Tazza D’Oro before the Church of Santa Mara wth ts Bernn elephant obelsk outsde . Then, through the Jewsh Ghetto, to the Pazza del Campdoglo, down the Cordonata steps, and on to the Colseum and the Forum . Everyone s tred, dusty, hot, and excted by how much more they’ve learned about the cty . The second day s a bus tour, whch allows us to see more of the mportant stes spread out wthn the walls of Rome than we would be able to walk to — lke the Scala Sancta (the Holy Stars), the Baslca of St . John Lateran, and the Baslca of Sant Mary Major . But tourng by bus also allows us to take fifty people beyond the old walls of the cty to St . Paul’s Beyond the Walls, the catacombs of the Appan Way, and the pyramd of Cestus and the Protestant Cemetery (wth graves of Keats, Shelley, Gramsc and Corso), both n Testacco . Ths second day ncludes a lunch at whch talk echoes wth the work of the prevous week . Certanly, vstng every one of the four major baslcas wth a prest brought faculty close to the rch- ness of Catholcsm n Rome, as dd watchng a tourst couple stop hm at the Catacombs of St . Cecla to ask hm to bless ther weddng rngs . But, for academc faculty, not all of them Catholc, sghtseeng wth Mon- sgnor Garca s not just about Catholcsm . Hs tours are expert teachng — lecture, dscusson, experental learnng, queston and answer . He draws on comparatve relgon, art hstory, archaeology, socology, and even lt- erature, embodyng for our group what s possble through study abroad: embracng a place and becomng both curous and knowledgeable about local hstory and culture whle mmersed wthn t . The Value of Faculty Study Abroad No one conceved of the Summer Faculty Wrtng Insttute as faculty study abroad, but the more I learn about global study for faculty, the more I thnk of the program as exactly that: a two week short term study abroad experence whch postons the faculty as learners . And colleges and unvers- 163 Anne Ellen Geller tes have begun to see the value of nvestng n faculty study abroad, expensve as t may be . A 2008 Chronicle of Higher Education artcle reports Madelne F . Green, former vce presdent of nternatonal ntatves for the Amercan Councl on Educaton, as sayng “faculty members can present a major barrer to colleges’ nternatonal efforts” for “they may have spent lttle tme out of the country, see ther dscplne n strctly Amercan terms, or consder study abroad as nothng more than a dverson” (Fscher, 2008) . Green s quoted: “‛I tell presdents f they have any money at all for nternatonalza- ton, faculty development s the place to put t .’” The artcle hghlghts a program at Rollns College through whch the presdent “has pledged to send every faculty and staff member wth teachng dutes abroad once every three years” (Fscher, 2008) . Smlar, smaller scale faculty travel programs reported n the same artcle exst at Rhodes, Grnnell, Marcopa County Communty College Dstrct, and the Unversty of Rchmond . The Summer Faculty Wrtng Insttute n Rome has taught me that there are questons all of our nsttutons should be consderng: What are the study abroad possbltes at an nsttuton and how can those possbltes best be leveraged for faculty development programs? For example, my prevous nsttuton has a popular and longstandng May term sesson n Luxembourg . How could that same sesson for students engage faculty n new ways? And how could nvolvng faculty n a study abroad program so connected to the nsttuton help faculty buld unexpected, and maybe even currently unartculated, connectons to nsttutonal msson? Many faculty study abroad programs brng faculty to specfic locales for research or dscplnary learnng connected to those places — for example, Texas A&M’s program takes faculty to study “the culture, hstory, government, busness and language of Mexco” so they “ncorporate applcable global experences nto ther teachng and research programs” (Dooley and Rouse, 2009, p . 163) . Whle the program descrbed here may not promote that same type of ndvdual global, scholarly engagement wth Rome, t models the possbltes for creatng faculty learnng (and thus changes n faculty teachng) n places that are nsttutonally mportant, and thus may become ndvdually mportant to faculty . The benefits of faculty study abroad for nsttutons, but also for faculty and students, seem postve (Dooley and Rouse, 2009) . Because of faculty study abroad, the Unversty of Rchmond reports growth n the number of 164