After a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck central Italy last April, killing 307 people and damaging much of the region's infrastructure, several graduate students from the destroyed University of L'Aquila came to Dartmouth to continue their studies. Through the Dartmouth-L'Aquila Project, funded by the Leslie Center for the Humanities, the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding and the Provost's Office, L'Aquila graduate students Christian Orsini and Valentina Martemucci have been studying at the College this term, according to a College press release.
Martemucci arrived at Dartmouth this term and will remain at the College during the Spring term, continuing her dissertation on contemporary Italian literature. Orsini is studying at Dartmouth just for this term, while he works on his dissertation on John Clare, an English romantic poet. Another L'Aquila graduate student was also at Dartmouth last term, but has since left, according to the press release.
Neither Orsini nor Martemucci could be reached for comment by press time.
Martemucci studied at the University of California, Santa Barbara last term, according to the press release. As the winner of an Australian Travel Award, according to a press release posted on the web site of the Italian embassy in Canberra, Martemucci will also study at Monash University in Australia for two to six months.
Italian professor Graziella Parati was instrumental in orchestrating and getting funding for the Dartmouth-L'Aquila Project and meets regularly with Orsini, according to the College press release.
Parati contacted a professor at the University of L'Aquila, who provided a list of students who wanted to participate in the project.
"We looked at research proposals and selected students we knew we could find mentors for," Parati said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Dartmouth's relationship with the L'Aquila students goes both ways, as Orsini and Martemucci add to the College's community, Parati said.
"Anytime you can find native speakers who can interact with students is very great," Parati said. "From a human point of view, it's good to know students who have suffered greatly, who have seen their houses destroyed, their friends killed in the earthquake."
English professor Monika Otter aided Parati in organizing the Dartmouth-L'Aquila Project. She echoed Parati's sentiment that the L'Aquila students have contributed to the College.
"[The L'Aquila students] have been very involved with the Italian club, and informally they have made contact with graduate students in comparative literature, and that is very fruitful contact," Otter said. "They have visited undergraduate classes and they are doing an open presentation of their final project, which was very well attended last term [when the third L'Aquila student was present on campus]."
Last week, College President Jim Yong Kim said Dartmouth is planning to bring students from Haiti to the College, in light of the recent earthquake that devastated the country.
Parati said she did not know if she will be contacted for advice on the Haitian student project.
"We are kind of happy that we opened the door with our initiative and showed that it can be done," she said.
