You lead the academics.
We deliver everything else.

FACULTY-LED PROGRAMS · HOW IT WORKS

How a faculty-led program works with us - academic model and operational support.

Our faculty-led programs are designed as an extension of your home campus and curriculum: your visiting faculty member retains full academic authority, and our partner desk delivers everything operational around the academic core - across three structured phases that mirror the standard expectations of U.S. study-abroad offices.

Institutional basis: Accademia di Italiano operates as part of Unicollege SSML, an Istituto ad Ordinamento Universitario accredited by Italy's Ministero dell'Università e della Ricerca (MUR). Our faculty-led programs therefore sit within a recognised Italian higher-education framework - not within a stand-alone language school - which is part of why our documentation tends to clear U.S. curriculum committees in a single review cycle.

How a faculty-led program works with us

Your faculty leads the academic vision. The visiting faculty member designs the academic content, teaches the discipline-specific course, sets the assessment criteria, and grades the students. We are not co-instructors and we do not interfere with the academic plan - the credits belong to your institution. We deliver everything around it. Classroom and study space, on-campus or affiliated housing, ground transport, field-study logistics, Italian language instruction at the appropriate level (where part of the design), student services on site, cultural programming, and integration with our resident operations team. Approval-ready documentation. See the Academic Approval Pack - the structured documentation set we issue to support your institution's curriculum approval, risk-management review, insurance review, and study-abroad office sign-off. Single partner desk - one contact. You work with one named partner-desk lead for the full lifecycle of the program - pre-departure planning, on-site delivery, and post-program reporting. No vendor stack to manage, no fragmented communication.

Three phases of program support

Our partner desk operates across the full lifecycle of a faculty-led program - from initial scoping to post-program reporting. The structure mirrors the standard expectations of U.S. study-abroad offices and accreditation reviewers.

Pre-departure. Academic Approval Pack tailored to your institution, syllabus integration with our facilities, faculty briefing, draft program calendar, risk-management documentation, health-and-safety brief, housing inventory and allocation plan, pre-departure orientation materials for students, visa documentation guidance, advanced cultural-immersion planning. On-site delivery. Arrival reception, airport transport coordination, check-in at on-campus or affiliated housing, on-site welcome and orientation, classroom and lab access, daily operations support, weekly cultural programming, faculty office space, 24-hour emergency contact, ongoing health-and-safety oversight, mid-program review. Re-entry & reporting. End-of-program student debrief, attendance and participation records issued in the format your registrar expects, faculty feedback session, post-program report to the home institution, transcript-friendly documentation where required, partnership-renewal conversation for future cohorts. Continuous accountability. Each program is reviewed against the original academic and operational plan agreed at scoping. Variance is documented and shared with the home institution - together with proposed mitigations. We treat post-program reporting as the seal of the partnership, not as paperwork.

What we coordinate on the ground

Beyond classroom delivery, the partner desk coordinates the full operational footprint of the program. The list below is what is included as standard; further services are available on request and scoped at program design.

Arrival & logistics. Airport transfer coordination · arrival reception · check-in at on-campus or affiliated housing · local SIM and connectivity guidance · public-transport orientation · welcome kit. Housing. Cohort housing in our on-campus residences (Florence, Mantua) or in vetted partner accommodations (Milan, Turin) · faculty housing options · meal-plan integration · housekeeping and maintenance coordination. Visa & immigration administration. Consulate-grade enrolment certificates · syllabus and program-hour documentation for visa applications · post-arrival residence-permit support · liaison with consulates and Questura when required. Risk management & safety. Comprehensive risk-management documentation · health-and-safety brief · emergency response protocol · 24-hour emergency contact · liaison with U.S. State Department travel advisories where required. Health insurance & healthcare. Coordination of medical-insurance documentation meeting Italian consulate and university requirements · local healthcare orientation · medico di base guidance for longer programs. Academic operations. Classroom and lab scheduling · IT and AV setup · library and study-room access · printing and reprographic support · attendance recording · grade-submission handover to home institution.

Optional academic enrichments

Beyond the faculty-taught core course, programs can be enriched with discipline-aligned additional learning experiences, designed by your faculty together with our partner desk.

Guest lectures & conferences. Local academics, industry professionals, cultural-institution curators delivering targeted lectures aligned with the faculty's syllabus. Joint sessions with Italian university partners where relevant. Field trips & site visits. Discipline-aligned visits - museums, archaeological sites, corporate sites, design studios, regional excursions (Siena, Pisa, Bologna, Rome, the Langhe wine region, Verona, Cremona). Logistics, transport, and entry-fee coordination handled by us. Internships & service learning. Credit-bearing or co-curricular placements with local Italian organisations - cultural institutions, NGOs, design studios, small enterprises, schools - scoped against the academic objectives of the program. Conversation partners & teaching placements. One-to-one or small-group conversation-partner pairings with Italian university students for language-component cohorts · teaching-assistant placements in local schools where relevant to the academic plan. Experiential & community engagement. Hands-on workshops, studio practice, laboratory work, volunteering with local cultural and social organisations · structured community-engagement activities scoped to the discipline. Cultural-immersion calendar. Weekly evening and weekend programming - cinema, opera (La Scala, Teatro Comunale), regional cuisine, walking tours, food-and-wine excursions, sport - designed for the cohort's interests and level of Italian.