Remarks: Casa Artom’s 50th Anniversary Gala

Remarks given Friday, May 19, 2023 in Venice, Italy at a gala celebration commemorating the 50th anniversary of Wake Forest University’s Casa Artom

Thank you President Wente.  We are so fortunate that you are such a powerful advocate for our study abroad programs and the incomparable learning they provide. 

Thank you  – our trustees – for your support of these incredible programs.

Thank you to our faculty, staff, and administrators – here in Casa Artom and in Winston-Salem, who are so essential to Casa Artom’s tremendous success.  We could not do any of this without you. 

Thank you, Kim Snipes and Leigh Stanfield, and all the Global Programs staff, who organized this magnificent 50th anniversary event. 

And thank you, alumni and friends, for joining us here to celebrate Casa Artom’s past, present and future. 

I am so happy to be able to be here with you. Fifteen years ago I spent a day in Venice with my then 7th grade son.  We ventured through St. Mark’s Square and the Doge’s Palace, but my favorite part of our brief Venetian adventure was finding the fabled Casa Artom.  We toured the house and then we climbed the two story bamboo nest in the courtyard, an incredible work of art that was part of the biennale.  

My son scampered up this fragile, swaying creation in delight, while I held my breath and stepped as slowly and lightly as I could, certain the thin strands of bamboo would never hold me, until I got to the top and could gaze out across the beautiful city and into Peggy Guggenheim’s garden next store. It was a magical moment. And now I am back in Venice for the first time since then.  What a magical two days with all of you. 

I am a historian so I want you to think about Casa Artom’s beginnings with me for a minute. Fifty years ago, Casa Artom, Wake Forest’s little palace on the Grand Canal, was a unique outpost for Wake Forest students, most of whom were from North Carolina, many of whom had never flown on a plane before and certainly had never left the country. 

Their experiences here – learning Italian, reading Italian literature and history, studying Venetian art and architecture, drinking espressos in the cafes and wine in the bars, traveling across Europe on long weekends and breaks, proved truly transformative, and Wake Forest trustees, administrators and especially faculty understood this, and quickly championed this kind of learning.   

And so Wake Forest said if we can do this house program in Venice, we can do this in London, and we can do this in Vienna.  Wake Forest also said we can have students in the homes of local residents and in local universities too, and do even more, in Dijon, in Salamanca, in Santiago, in Buenos Aires, in Copenhagen – the list goes on and on – and we did and we do, and these programs are all terrific. 

Casa Artom helped us realize that as long as we had dedicated, erudite professors and bright, curious students, we could make the Wake Forest classroom come alive just about anywhere around the globe – wherever our faculty and students find themselves – with the critical help of our Global Office.

But you know this all already. That’s why you are here for this celebration.  

You, our alumni, made that transformative education happen together. You, like me climbing that fragile Biennale nest fifteen years ago, may have entered into the experience treading ever so carefully, but then you looked around, and you engaged in your new world, and made your new Venice life into your very own. 

You know better than anyone how much you gained from your experience here – Casa Artom was your nest and from it you gained new independence and self-reliance, a second language, new knowledge about literature and history, meaningful cultural understandings, openness to new ideas and differences in perspective, and lifelong friendships – nurtured by faculty who taught you, lived with you, and cared deeply about you. Your experience at Casa Artom, I would be so bold to suggest, has profoundly shaped who you are today, indeed a fact that many of you have shared with me these last two days. 

And so let me simply close my remarks by inviting you all – alumni, trustees, faculty, and staff – to continue to be emissaries for Casa Atom – and indeed ALL our study abroad programs as we look to Wake Forest’s bright future – as we prepare for our 200th anniversary as a university which is just around the corner.

– Michele Gillespie, Provost