Meet the professor immersing students in Italian culture through language studies

Nadia Cristiani didn’t plan on becoming a teacher. Cristiani, a professor of Italian language and culture at Loyola University Chicago’s John Felice Rome Center, grew up in Pisa and didn’t always like being on the student side of the classroom. When her mother encouraged her to take English lessons as a girl, she resisted. “I hated it,” she says. 

But then Cristiani moved to London, and she ended up teaching Italian to students there. Two things changed then: First, her interest in English grew. “Somehow I learned how to appreciate the language,” she says. And her comfort in front of a class surprised her: “I felt that it was very natural for me.”

When she came back to Italy, she kept going. Cristiani taught Italian to foreign students but was often dismayed when students seemed to be on holiday, even in the classroom. “They wanted to travel. It was more of a vacation,” she says. The sense of academic rigor was missing. But then a colleague heard that the Rome Center was looking for an Italian teacher. 

And it was a great match. At the Rome Center, Cristiani was pleased to see the students’ desire to both experience the country and focus on their learning. She encourages students to speak Italian, both in the classroom and out in the shops and restaurants of Rome. When their families visit, students are able to communicate with taxi drivers and order antipasto. They come back to her beaming. “They say ‘Professor, you should be so proud of me! I was able to do this and that’,” she recounts.

Her interest in the Ignatian model deepened when she took on the Rome Center’s internship coordinator position in fall 2010, helping students secure meaningful work experiences in Rome. 

“I was lucky enough to be able to shape the program, always in discussion and aligning with what I was learning,” she says. “I felt like I was somehow going through the Ignatian pedagogy along with the students,” she says, “because I was doing and then reflecting.”

This pays off for students who get a taste of their future careers and for Cristiani, who keeps improving the internship model. “I developed this appreciation for the Jesuit values in education because of the internship program, that’s for sure,” she says. 

The program helps encourage confidence in her students and builds a foundation for their careers. 

And she’s proud that both she and the internship hosts in the community treat the students as young professionals. “They are not treated as interns. They participate,” she says. “I like to see how our students really grow in the space of a few weeks.”

Looking back at her past, Cristiani smiles when she thinks about how she almost didn’t become a professor. But, as it is for her students, a few key experiences early in her life sent her down a different path. “It’s important that you stay open to what life offers you because you might find something that is actually your passion,” she says.

Now it’s hard to imagine life any other way.

Read more stories from the John Felice Rome Center.