The inauguration ceremony for the fourth academic year (2007-08) of the undergraduate program at the University of Gastronomic Sciences will be held in Royal Theater (Teatro Regio) in Parma at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, October 11, 2007.
The event launches a new class of Pollenzo students into three years of gastronomy studies and takes place far from the new freshmen’s home campus. Instead, it unrolls in Parma, the host province of the university’s Colorno-based master-degree campus, in order to coincide with the Parma phase of UNISG’s Po River Project. As such, the new UNISG arrivals will get to witness their 153 upper-year colleagues part way along a 25-day educational bicycle tour from Monviso (in Piedmont) to the Adriatic coast.
The eco-gastronomic experiential learning project began September 26 and concludes October 20, covering four regions, 13 provinces, and 82 townships. In addition to forming the basis of the student’s studies, the project is designed to develop a model for studying the culture, environmental health, and economics of other river systems worldwide. It marks the 50th anniversary of RAI telejournalist Mario Soldati’s research trip along the Po, when he too studied the typical foods and environmental health of the troubled river.
The Po River Project is a distinctive example of the field-study seminars that typify UNISG’s multidisciplinary approach to food studies, an appropriate setting to launch the new first-year students into their program. Both the university’s dean, Alberto Capatti, and the president of Slow Food International, Carlo Petrini, will participate in the ceremony.