Student Voices

Students in a group

“ My service experience helped me to understand the social context of volunteering and what it means to ‘help’ someone. “By getting to know someone or a culture personally, stereotypes can be broke. If everyone did this, we would start to see cultures and people for what they actually are and not how they are portrayed in the media and how we are conditioned to think they are. If more people were willing to make the choice to learn about something new and different, the results would be incredible.”

- Stephanie Nawyn DU Center student,
2004 Famiglia Aperta service learning participant

“ Bologna provides an excellent living and learning experience for students studying a wide range of disciplines. Due to its high level of citizen involvement and strong community organizations, Bologna is a model community for civic engagement and social capital. While the community has a lot to teach students about collaborative community building, students also bring a lot of creative ideas and experiences. [The] sharing of best practices between the students and professors working in the educational systems and business owners/community organizers from the public and private industries presents new opportunities for understanding civic engagement on a macro level.”

- George Stockum University of Denver HRTM ’05

“For the last five weeks of the DU-Bologna program, I was able to experience a non-traditional but true Italian family. Il Piccolo Principe, a foster-case home for children, was my service-learning site. “We visited the home during the evening. We helped with il laboratorio del’arte (art lab) and homework. Every evening ended with a large dinner. Though perfect in taste, it was not the food that fascinated me. My fascination was drawn from the people who surrounded me. For two hours, there was peace at the dinner table. It was a treasured time for the family. It reminded me of home and of my family, but it did not make me sad. The experience found for me intricate connections between cultures. They were not Italians but just a family, and we were their guests. Our labels and identities were insignificant because we were all just people, just enjoying the beauty of life.”

- Abbey Vannoy University of Denver DU, 2006

“International Civic Engagement in Action: Bologna, Italy has had a positive impact on my life. The time spent at Il Piccolo Principe has been an amazing experience of reflection and learning. My interest in civic engagement has become a passion. Rather than just wanting to be involved in community service, I now want to actively identify community problems, look for ways to solve them, and implement actions. I’ve been a delegate for DU’s Model United Nations for two years, and I currently work in the International Service Learning Office at the University. After graduating in June, I will join the fellowship program at Colorado’s El Pomar foundation. There, I hope to gain a few years of frontline experience and then head to one of the nation’s top graduate programs. Following grad school, I hope to pursue a career related to international economic development.”

- Ashley Buderus University of Denver DU Center student, 2002

“The year I spent as an exchange student from Bologna at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver (1994-95) was a seminal event in my life. The courses I took, my intership at the World Trade Center
in Denver, the friends I made and the professors who taught me have been instrumental in my life and career. I have been working for Magneti Marelli, a sub-sidiary of FIAT in Bologna, and will soon become Vice President of Finance of Marelli Powertrain USA in Raleigh, North Carolina.”

- Marco Samorì