Madeline Wisnowski, TUR '72

"I took a crash course in conversational Italian the summer before my fall semester at NYU...just to be a little prepared. Got to Rome without a snag. One of the "dorms" at Temple Rome was the Pensione Coronet...overlooking the Doria Pamphili villa. My room was the largest...overlooking the garden of the villa because Cinzia (Cynthia) Landis and I were the only two non-smokers. We spent a bit of time in Giulianova with our nona, who was very strict and would not let us go out "dancing"! It was a memorable time. Then, before classes started, there were afternoons spent in Ostia Lido...looking for the ragazzis! Classes began and they were all wonderful. We all got along with the professors, some of whom were lecherous in a wonderful way. There was drama, but that made it all the more interesting. We spent afternoons on the Spanish Steps and most of us, as a result, acquired boyfriends. We were afforded wonderful excursions to Venice and Florence and enjoyed wonderful excursions on our own to France and Tunisia (the airfares were sooo attractive). I have to say that my time spent at Temple Rome was one of the best of my young years. To be 20 years old in the early 70's, blonde and thin...it was a no brainer. I've been back to Italy a few times since then and love it all now as much as I did my first time, thanks to this wonderful opportunity to study abroad!"

Craig Bernhardt, TUR '68

"Although more than a half century has passed since my junior year in Rome (yes it was an entire school year back then not just a semester), many memories are as fresh as if they happened only yesterday. But first a little bit of historical background to help set the stage and frame the experience. In 1968/1969 you could only attend Tyler in Rome if you were a fine arts major – painting, sculpture, or printmaking – so the curriculum was totally fine arts based…except for ongoing Italian lessons and a healthy dose of Art History….for which we made numerous class trips, not only in Rome proper, but all around Italy, Greece, and France to see first hand what we were studying. At that time, the journey to Italy was a leisurely 6 day trip by sea on the Italian luxury liner Michelangelo…..during which we began our Italian lessons by day and partied by night. The Italian lessons were held in the ship’s theater. The teacher (Giosetta Capriati) stood in front of the stage, the curtains swaying back and forth behind her with the rolling of the ship, resulting in many of my classmates experiencing their first bout of sea sickness. Computers, cell phones, the internet, email, and iTunes were still decades in the future. If you wanted to communicate with the folks back home you had to write letters…..and wait a couple weeks for a reply. I did make one phone call home around the Christmas holidays that year, but to do so I had to reserve a time slot with an overseas operator a week in advance. When we arrived in Italy, we didn’t start classes right away. Rather, we went to Pistoia (a small-ish town just west of Florence) to live with an Italian family for 2 weeks in order to have us experience what the typical Italian family daily life was like. Each student was assigned to a different family and, other than those ongoing Italian lessons and a few local art history trips, we did pretty much everything else with the family members – meals, shopping, church, etc. My family also took me on a day trip to nearby Vinci.....the birthplace of you know who. I have maintained contact with my ‘Italian family’ all these years....visiting them often on trips back to Italy with my own family, and now via email.  Now that I think of it, the day-to-day experiences of going to my classes, those art history excursions, school social events, life at the pensione, walking back and forth over the Tiber on the Ponte Matteotti, eating at least one meal in the same trattoria every day (at which the school had a meal plan arrangement for the students), walking through Piazza del Popolo with cars buzzing wildly all around, and generally taking in the wonder of Rome on a daily basis all blend together into one exceptional memory.....and a life changing experience. Oh....and one day, only a few days before the end of the school year just before we were about to return to the USA, a woman came up to me on the street and, in Italian, asked me what time it was......and I, in Italian, responded....'sono le tre meno un quarto.'"

Katie Gerst, TUR former Visiting Faculty from the Fox School of Business, '12 & '16

"I taught at Temple Rome in 2012 and 2016. In 2016, we could not do our usual orientation trip to Titignano, so we went to Castel Gandolfo instead. After seeing us gather for this picture (clockwise from left: Caitlin Hurley, former Associate Director at TUR; Hope Gustafson, former staff at TUR; me, Marketing faculty at TU; Jillian Harris, Dance faculty at TU; and Gianni Marangio, the most infamous TUR staff member!), a little old woman who lived right by the lake invited Gianni, Jillian, and me into her home so we could take pictures from her vantage point. Her view really was gorgeous!"

Cara Epstein, TUR '16

"My large group of friends and I would cook these elaborate dinners and eat them in the courtyard or on the roof. My favorite one was on Valentine’s Day. We all cooked a meal that was primarily pink and red. I made the pasta with a blush sauce. We drank red wine, and ate fancy desserts. It was such a pure magical night celebrating female friendships in a foreign country."