Temple Rome begins in-person semester
Written By Jocelyn Hockaday | Edits and Contributions made by The Temple News
The campus had previously been online for a year, now as the pandemic conditions decrease, Rome slowly incorporates in-person academic life once again.
In January 2021, Temple Rome went back to in-person learning and had accepted 70 students into their program, which is much less than their usual number of 180-200 students in the Fall, 250-300 in the Spring, and 120-150 in the Summer. The city still had COVID restrictions in place, however the students and faculty were glad to take a step towards normalcy. As anticipated, as outbreaks occurred, Temple Rome would go virtual periodically.
Although these times were demanding, the students got to study in person as well as have on site lectures and assignments, go to museums, and travel within the region.
Temple University’s study abroad program in Rome is officially in-person again for the Fall 2021 semester after it was virtual last fall.
Temple Rome is slowly beginning to return to their pre-pandemic ways such as extracurricular activities and campus events.
Anna Cahn, a junior art studio major, is excited to experience campus life in-person once again. “Studying abroad is always something I wanted to do. I like my classes and my professors are amazing.”
“We had orientation, we took them to a nice castle, and we had a ceremonial meal there all of us together, started the semester, and they are already in classes,” said Emilia Zankina, dean of Temple Rome. “A lot of them walk for their classes or just specific monuments or a specific part of the city. Their evening event is wine tasting or soccer. The campus is starting to get back to its old life in a way.”
“I feel like Temple University enrollment has been very welcoming and has been very supportive of orientation I thought was great. We had so much information, especially safety wise, which I think was really nice”, says Anna.
The classrooms are smaller, whereof Anna loves, “I’m taking all studio classes, and my classes are so small, there are 8 people, so I like that I get to really know my professor. Some of them are even smaller, like six people. I know my roommate, she has a class with three people.”
She also gets to experience Temple Rome in person, which is a large difference from online learning, “It's so nice, especially to do art here. Studio is just something you really can't do online, like you can, but I didn't take one studio class last year, because I'm also a double major in psychology and art studio. So last year I dedicated all my time to the site because I was like why, why even tried to take an art class online.”
Since their first in-person semester in March 2020, the campus has had a few restrictions in place. Traveling out of Italy is prohibited and each student and facility member must abide by Center for Disease Control and Prevention protocols, which include social distancing and wearing a mask indoors, Zankina said.
All students must be fully vaccinated with proof of their CDC vaccination card or obtain a Green Path, Zankini said. The Green Path is a digital travel pass that has a QR code to scan for easy access with his or her id and details. The Green Path provides either proof of vaccination, a doctor has declared he or she has recovered from Covid-19 within the past 6 months, or a test has been taken within the last 48 hours.
In Europe, if a citizen obtains a Green Path, they are allowed to freely travel anywhere. Zankina has approved the use of CDC vaccination cards in place of the Green Path.
There are a select few international students who couldn’t get vaccinated in time before coming to Rome, therefore they get tested every 48 hours, Zankini said.
Zankina believes increased vaccination rates are a solution to combating the delta variant of COVID-19.
“You know I think that this virus is so resilient and unpredictable,” Zankina said. “It is predictable in a way that when you see the Delta variants in India, you know it would make itself to the US and then to Europe, so you can expect a wave to hit you. The question is then how do you respond to this wave.”
“That's what we've been hoping for,” Zankina said. “So we're so excited.”
Anna Cahn, says that the Covid restrictions haven’t affected her learning in a negative way, “Pretty much everything is kind of open on, and like normal in a Covid sense. And I feel like we can still use public transportation, museums. The one restriction that I think we all really feel, is that we're not allowed to leave Italy.” Although she and her classmates cannot travel outside of Italy, she gets “to be present and get to know Italy.”
Zankina wants there to be an increased awareness of what the study abroad program offers.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the restrictions in place were very formidable for the faculty”, Zankina said. “Students studying abroad in Rome are now fully back in person, with only five remote classes a huge difference from last summer”.
This story is unpublished through The Temple News.
