By Lookout Staff

August 6, 2012 -- Santa Monica College has lured a widely sought-after Italian language professor known for his innovative teaching methods as its first visiting Fulbright Scholar.

Dr. Paolo Torresan will teach classes at SMC in the 2012-13 school year and will "be tapped for a wide variety of activities, including conducting workshops for faculty, advising students, and helping organize cultural events, both at the college and in the larger Southern California community," SNC officials said.

“This is a great honor and exciting development that SMC will have such a distinguished Fulbright scholar on our campus in the coming academic year,” said Dr. Toni Trives, chair of the SMC Modern Languages and Cultures Department.

A tenured professor at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, Torresan joins a U.S. government program whose alumni include 43 Nobel Prize and 81 Pulitzer Prize winners. He is currently a Visiting Scholar in Linguistics at Lancaster University in England.

“Knowing what Dr. Torresan has done and also having seen him in the classroom, I am very excited to have a world-class methodologist join our faculty," said SMC Italian professor Dr. Aned Muñiz, who was instrumental in bringing Torresan to the college.

Torresan -- who will teach two Italian classes in the fall and the spring semesters -- also will "contribute to the expansion of our program at a time when student demand is peaking but the existing resources would have otherwise not permitted such growth,” Muñiz said.

In addition, Torresan, who has his Ph.D. in linguistics and romance philology, will "play a key role in SMC’s Global Citizenship Initiative," increasing awareness of the Italian language and culture in both the college and the community, officials said.

Torresan also will assist with innovative ideas and teaching methods, help SMC develop formal relationships and programming with Italian educational institutions and lecture in other SMC courses, including education, comparative religion, literature and English-as-a-Second-Language, officials said.

Torresan "has been a visiting scholar and professor throughout the world, including the United Kingdom, Brazil and Spain," SMC officials said.
 
Torresan is one of approximately 850 outstanding foreign faculty and professionals who will teach and/or research in the U.S. through the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program, which brings scholars and professionals from abroad to U.S. colleges and universities.

"Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields," Fulbright officials said. "The program operates in more than 155 countries worldwide."