Summer in Sicily (UofM Students)

The course is designed for college students who are approaching the study of the Italian language for the first time. Lessons are held exclusively in Italian and take into consideration the need to combine the study of lexis and grammar with the development of communication skills and cultural awareness. The instructor encourages students to put the language structures and vocabulary studied in class into practice in real life situations, thus accelerating the learning process and bringing students into contact with local society so that they may fully appreciate the way of life and cultural differences. This knowledge is an integral part of linguistic competence.

This course will provide undergraduate students with an advanced knowledge of policies, practices, discourses and media coverage of migration and asylum in the Mediterranean, while focusing on migration crises in the region as well as on human rights issues. It offers students a comprehensive view of the different models and challenges related to the complex social phenomenon of migration, as well as its main actors and processes. The complexity of migration phenomena will be disentangled through a cross-cutting perspective that combine distinct yet complementary study areas: politological and sociological approaches to analyzing European migratory flows and policies, human rights and criminal justice perspectives on migration, and analysis of contemporary communication strategies, framing, media coverage and related impacts.

Building a new business is a difficult endeavor anywhere in the world; tenacity, creativity and endless intrinsic motivation are needed to drive the entrepreneurial spirit. Successful entrepreneurship also requires government and institutional support, infrastructure, and investment. This is clear in the development of “hubs” - tech, finance, AI, etc. - in urban centers around the globe. Such factors create business ecosystems where new entrants to a specific field can thrive. This is also true in Italy.

As one of the world’s most industrialized economies, Italy has important manufacturing, finance, and agricultural hubs that foster entrepreneurial growth. However, in Southern Italy, the obstacles to entrepreneurship are outsized in comparison to Northern Italy. Poor infrastructure, low cooperation, and a lack of entrepreneurial education have helped to perpetuate slow development of the South. Young people often move north or abroad to study and work. This phenomenon, oftentimes dubbed the “brain drain,” can also be seen replicated in other highly industrialized countries, where capital, knowledge, and labor end up concentrating in specific geographical areas creating social divides. Nonetheless, entrepreneurship in Southern Italy is growing. In recent years, over 50% of new small businesses registered in Italy were concentrated in the South and Island regions of the country. Thanks to focalized national and regional funding initiatives and collective advocacy movements for business development in Southern Italy, new companies have been able to take root.

Ethics and integrity in supply chain management are continually coming into question as global discussions of fair trade, labor practices, and corruption are more frequently exposed to be connected to business-as-usual practices. Sicily can be viewed as a microcosm of global supply chain challenges and as a laboratory for ethical business practices. From international labor market competition and inequality to the logistics of operating from an island and the implications of corruption and organized crime, businesses of all scales find themselves benefitting from the island’s geo-political integration in the European Union but also struggling with poor infrastructure, transnational competition, complex transportation logistics, and shifting cultural beliefs.

This course focuses on the language and tools of sustainability and responsibility as new standard currencies in business and challenges students to consider complex issues of ethics and integrity within real-world business cases in the Sicilian economic and sociocultural context. As a result of this analysis, students will better understand the realities of applying ethical frameworks to complex, global business environments, and also recognize the medium- and long-term impacts of corporate decisions that can lead to not only thriving businesses ready to adapt to the demands of new and evolving markets, but also to sustain local communities and address complex economic and social challenges through innovation.

Based on principles of International Law, the course intends to introduce students to the international system of protection of human rights and its foundations, by presenting and analyzing the sources, the categories, the content and the limitations, as well as the obligations which Human Rights generate for states. The course also outlines the main implementation mechanisms of protection foreseen at the universal and regional level to ensure their respect, by studying their scope and their effectiveness.

Along with this theoretical overview, the course proposes an in-depth analysis of thematic case studies from various Human Rights categories and dimensions and accompanied by site visits and guest lectures in collaboration with the Siracusa International Institute of Criminal Justice and Human Rights and international NGOs, allowing for a comparative focus on the Euro-Mediterranean region, on the following thematic areas: climate change and human rights (with relation to migration, food systems, health and sell-being, gender justice), asylum and refugee Law and policy, violence against women, the responsibilities of businesses to protect human rights (duty of care and due diligence principles, seasonal workers, migrant workers), and human rights and national security (terrorism, smuggling, migration).

This course aims to provide undergraduate students with an advanced knowledge of how to conduct research on migration, asylum, and human rights in the Mediterranean. It delves into the research process and the ensuing methodology, equipping students with a fully-fledged ‘toolbox’ and offering them the opportunity to learn the appropriate analytical methods and data collection techniques to investigate migration and asylum, and implement comparative research designs. The course aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice, giving students the opportunity to understand, learn and experience the appropriate research approaches, methodological and data-collection tools in relation to the many aspects of migration. Moreover, students will have the possibility to conduct original research, and take advantage of resources in Sicily as well as, possibly, analyzing data and sources in the US, thus implementing a comparative research approach.