The Institute of Italian Studies and the Swiss Chairs of Italian Studies.
Institutional Communication Service
17 October 2022
The Chairs of Italian studies in Swiss universities play an important role. In addition to teaching, they include research and dialogue outside the academic context. "It is quite a different thing to perform in an Italian-speaking or a non-Italian-speaking environment: the complementarity of what we do here and elsewhere in Switzerland is essential," explained Sara Garau, associate professor of literature and vice-director of the USI Institute of Italian Studies (ISI) interviewed with other colleagues from Swiss universities by the weekly magazine "Cooperazione" in an article dedicated to the teaching of Italian in Swiss universities, in the context of the Week of the Italian Language in the World.
Over the past two decades there has been a drop in the number of students enrolled acrossed the Alps, but is only partly due to the creation of the Institute in 2007. "Students who choose ISI are not necessarily being drawn away from other locations across the Alps. On the contrary, I am convinced that our institute has helped expand the pool of those studying Italian in Ticino, providing an opportunity that perhaps not everyone would have been able to take."
The full report is on pages 58-61 of the 11 October 2022 edition
