Partnerships and Collaborative Opportunities

The Umbra Institute offers a variety of opportunities for collaboration with U.S. colleges and universities seeking to develop new academic programs, initiatives, and partnerships in Italy. You can choose the level and scope of the collaboration: from simply working closely with the Umbra Institute as an approved study abroad destination for your students, to developing new faculty-led or curriculum-specific programs, the Umbra Institute will have an innovative and mutually beneficial solution to your school’s needs. If your institution is interested in developing a program in Italy, we encourage you to consider Perugia and the Umbra Institute.

Please contact us if your institution is interested in:

• Adopting the Umbra Institute program as a preapproved destination and becoming and Umbra affiliate;
• Developing faculty-led programs in Italy  (Maymesters, Summer Sessions, and Semester Programs);
• Offering study abroad programs in Italy with a specific curricular focus;
• Collaborating on other educational initiatives.

Becoming an Umbra Affiliate
Looking to provide your students with new and distinctive opportunities to study in Italy beyond the traditional destinations like Florence? At the Umbra Institute, we believe that every student has a particular program and destination that is right for them. Offering only one destination in Italy for all your students is too broad a brush for too fine a detail. This is why we encourage you to consider offering the Umbra Institute in Perugia as an additional or optional destination, especially for your gifted and more enterprising students. Every institution has students that are natural explorers and want to travel the unbeaten paths, live in the host country surrounded by locals, and interact with peers in the local community. The Umbra Institute meets those requirements. Its easy to become an Official Umbra affiliate. Contact us to discover more on how you can add the Umbra Institute to your list of affiliate/partner programs in Italy.

Strategic Cooperatives – Let the Umbra Institute Host Your Students and Faculty
Our most popular and integrated collaborative model is the CSAP, or Cooperative Study Abroad Program. Under this model, the Umbra Institute welcomes your students along with your professor(s) to teach a course or two for a semester or summer session. The course taught by the visiting professor is adopted as part of Umbra’s regular offerings and is open to all Umbra students. Your students can choose from among our other classes in addition to the one taught by the visiting faculty. The Umbra Institute looks to develop CSAP programs with college and universities that provide professors whose courses will add to the diversity of the curriculum, and whose students will add a desirable dimension to the student body.

This collaboration fully integrates your school’s program into the Umbra learning environment, breaking the “travelling island with all students together from the same school, all the time” routine. Since the Umbra Institute already has a full-service program including airport pick-up, housing, events and activities, emergency services, and more, creating a faculty-led program in Italy has never been easier. If you are a faculty member or administrator and would like to bring a group of students to Italy, the Umbra Institute may be the perfect solution.

Opportunities include:

• 3-week Maymester Programs
• 4- 6-week Summer Programs
• 15-week  Semester Programs
• Custom Programs to Fit Special Needs

If you and/or your institution are interested in adding the Umbra Institute as a destination for your students or developing a collaborative program, please contact us at info@umbra.org.