KENNESAW, Ga. | Mar 15, 2021

Educators all over the world have scrambled to minimize the impact of the pandemic on students, but what substitutes for a study abroad course? In May 2020, for the first time, Dr. Mona Sinha was to take 25 MBA students to Rome, Montepulciano, and Florence for a week to understand Italian culture and businesses – what she now calls her study abroad program’s “avatar 1”. When travel became impossible and universities canceled all study abroad trips, she had 2 weeks to pivot to a face-to-face class a.k.a. “avatar 2”, for the 15 students who had decided to stay on in the course. As it turned out, another pivot a.k.a. “avatar 3”, to a fully virtual format, came quickly on its heels.

“Avatar 2” was born out of her students and her disappointment. Her objective was to re-create some of the experiences they would have had in Italy. Having taught International Marketing to undergraduates for several years, she was accustomed to designing assignments and discussions aimed at creating awareness of other cultures, by having students attend the Year of (country) and other international on-campus events, trying unfamiliar cuisines, and watching international movies. Could she scale that for getting her students to experience Italian culture from 5,000 miles away?

What they ultimately co-created was not intended to attract attention or accolade. They simply wanted to understand Italian culture better so that when working on their business plans and case studies for class, their cultural awareness would inform their strategizing. No marketer can succeed without first understanding the market and consumers, especially so in international marketing.

Asking colleagues for help was her first thought. They did not let her down even though she had never met any of these fine scholars before. The story of her summer abroad class is a testament to the KSU faculty’s collegiality and commitment to student learning.

Dr. Anthony Rizzuto (Department of Architecture) offered to host her students at the Marietta campus to learn about Roman architecture through images and stories from his travels and experience, given his family roots in Italy. Dr. Philip Kiernan (School of Art and Design) agreed to share his insights on Italian culture and art. Keith Perissi (Joel A. Katz Music and Entertainment Business Program) invited them to their studio to learn about Italian music from Claudia Mescoli (Edizioni Curci Music Publishing) and about Italian musicians from Martina Albano, an Italian master engineer now based in Atlanta. Sinha found some outside experts too. Aaron Berger, a consultant, had 20 years’ experience leading and working at museums. He would introduce the class to Roman paintings and sculptures. Cathy Huyghes (Enolytics) and Rebecca Hopkins (Folio Fine Wine Partners), wine experts, would share business insights on Italian wine marketing. Fortuitously, she found a 3-day Italian film festival in downtown Atlanta and even though they would be exceeding the number of class hours as required for the course, by now they were a team ‘making lemonade from lemons’ and looking together for fun ways to learn about Italian culture!

It took a village to gather the many components that could provide insights about a country’s history and culture: art, sculpture, paintings, architecture, wine, music, and movies. There was just one critical missing ingredient…food. As Sinha looked for an Italian cooking class, a student suggested Bellina Alimentari. Much coordination later, they had an afternoon field trip scheduled to learn to make pizza and pasta from scratch after which they would dine together like ‘una famiglia italiana’. The excitement was palpable.

Just as she got done revising her teaching plan and D2L, KSU announced an indefinite campus shut down due to the pandemic! All classes had to go virtual. Sinha suddenly faced a pivot to a virtual format a.k.a. “avatar 3”. Having come this far, dogged persistence and additional creativity offered the only way out.

In “avatar 1”, the class had had important curricular milestones, including pre-and post-travel assignments geared towards business and marketing. Students had already coalesced into three groups with each one scheduled to analyze and present a Harvard Business School case study about an Italian business, before their travel. With a cultural immersion, the aim was for them to have some context as they analyzed the challenges and opportunities for an Agri Company, Mutti, a luxury brand, Gucci, and a hotel group, Eleganzia. Before departure for Rome, the groups were also required to identify and study an Italian business wanting to enter the United States market or an American firm wanting to market in Italy. During the trip and thereafter, they were to have conducted a market analysis and developed a market entry strategy for the firm. These business assignments did not need to change, they just had to move to a virtual format for our meetings and final project presentations. Converting our immersion experiences that were to fill in for the 7 days in Italy, to a virtual format, took much more time and coordination.

Dr. Sinha moved all her speakers to a virtual format, but this entailed individual technology training sessions with each of them! However, all their eagerly anticipated field trips to the movie festival, the lunch and learn, and the Marietta campus, would not happen. As she changed the class assignment due dates, she realized that they all had access to movies on Netflix and/or Prime. Why couldn’t they gain insights into Italian culture and society by watching and discussing a variety of Italian movies? Thus, originated a fun but insightful assignment! She also found YouTube videos, news articles, and short assignments to teach them different aspects about Italian society such as economy, debt, mafia, design/luxury industry, furniture-making, perceptions of time/punctuality, body language/gestures, and within-country differences e.g., North versus South Italy.

Sinha remained dejected about Bellina Alimentari shutting down. A few weeks later though she saw a Facebook post by the restaurant offering small group virtual one-hour classes using Facebook Live. After some persuasion, the owner/founder, Tal Baum, agreed to create a customized virtual class for them and since this was brand new for her, they had several practice sessions before the grand finale on Mother’s Day. For $100 each, the restaurant mailed each student and her, a box of ingredients with enough for a family of four. They all signed up eagerly despite the price tag. Dean Cheramie and Provost Schwaig joined them as well.

On Mother’s Day, they had a marathon of 6-hour virtual culinary training in their respective kitchens with their loved ones and then dined together. Many happy memories are encapsulated in this class collage. One student exulted, “While I didn’t get to experience Italy, I got to share an experience with an Italian influence in a way that will stay with my family forever. I can’t say that about any other class in my MBA curriculum.” We had a corporate impact too because Bellina Alimentari now holds virtual classes on Zoom!

What did the students learn? They connected the dots between culture and business as one student remarked, “Even though we could not go to Italy I still got an incredible insight into Italian culture and how cultures can affect businesses. The pandemic opened up new ways of communicating and doing things, and we managed to make everything work.” They appreciated the diverse insights, “It was great having several different speakers who were experts in music, art, architecture, sculpture, and even wine, to teach us about a country and its history that we didn’t want to miss out on.”

One student specifically linked art and business, “While Dr. Rizzuto’s statement about learning the rules, implementing them, then breaking them applied to Michelangelo, I found a strong business parallel to being entrepreneurial in the professional world. One must deeply understand the rules of a business sector before disrupting it. I also enjoyed his perspective on the Villa Giulia and how incredible architectural feats may be hidden from plain view. This can also be applied to a business. While executing a business plan or expanding an organization may look simple there is a vast amount of work and hidden complexity behind the scenes.”

The end of their virtual study abroad was evocatively summarized by a student who said:

“The emotions I am left with after this class has been completed is sadness, gratitude, and excitement. Sadness for the individuals that decided to drop this class and the opportunity that they missed learning about Italy. Gratitude for a teacher who cares and is willing to search out new ways to teach. Excitement to go to Italy even more so now than before. I feel I have been empowered and enlightened on so many topics that when I can go to Italy, the trip will be that much more impactful and wonderful.”

What did I learn? Sinha learned that a winning mantra is Chutzpah + Creativity + Co-creation, with a pinch of passion and persistence. She felt grateful for having students who were as willing to experiment as she was when their course formats changed so rapidly.

Their immersive learning experience was featured on Coles and KSU’s social media and news, a newspaper, and a radio show. Months later, KSU’s Division of Global Affairs had her conduct a webinar for KSU faculty as a way of suggesting a Plan B to the 2021 study abroad faculty if travel remained risky.

To Sinha, the three “avatars” of her Study Abroad felt like she developed three new courses, but the simpler way out could never have been as engaging or inspiring for either the students or herself. Ciao!