Using an interdisciplinary lens, examine ways in which contemporary Venice confronts sustainability challenges and develops resilience. Gain a basic understanding of its rich biodiversity and complex ecological system. Explore the environmental, social, and economic aspects of past, present, and future threats to a sustainable Venice, along with complex and unique local solutions. This course gives you the opportunity to:
Understand the Scientific Method: Develop the foundations of scientific knowledge and the fundamentals of scientific inquiry.
Learn Beyond the Classroom: Explore the lagoon and its environs through guided field trips and hear directly from local experts.
Expand Your Horizons: Cultivate intercultural competencies, acquire skills in critical thinking, and deepen your self-awareness while engaging with global perspectives.
This program is in partnership with the University of Warwick and will be co-taught by Columbia and Warwick faculty members.
Join us to learn more about the program!
Date: February 21, 2025
Time: 12 to 1 pm EST
Register here to join the information session.
Program Schedule
Summer 2025
Students arrive/check into housing: Thursday, June 5th, 2025
Orientation: Friday, June 6th and Saturday, June 7th, 2025
Classes begin: Monday, June 9th, 2025
Classes end: Saturday, July 5th, 2025
Students depart/check out of housing: Sunday, July 6th
Classes take place daily, with sessions in the morning and afternoon with a break for lunch. Some course activities will take place on the weekends and students should not plan weekend travel for the duration of the program.
Eligibility and Application
Must be a currently enrolled undergraduate student in good academic and disciplinary standing at Columbia University or Barnard College
Must have a minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA. Students must also maintain a 3.0 GPA during the semester before going abroad.
No background in sustainable development is required.
HOW TO APPLY
Want to apply? Click the “Apply Now” button above. If the button doesn't appear above, the program is not yet accepting applications. You will be asked to set up a short profile, which will allow us to send you relevant information about your application. Once you’ve created a profile, you will see a checklist of items that you will need to submit. These generally include:
Application questionnaire(s)
Letter of recommendation
Academics
All students enroll in the following course:
Ecology and Sustainability in Venice, 6 points.
Instructors:
Jenna Lawrence, Lecturer, Columbia Climate School
Bryan Brazeau, Associate Professor in the Liberal Arts, University of Warwick
The course aims to provide a scientific, social, and economic examination of the city and past, present, and future threats to a sustainable Venice. It will be an immersive experience combining lectures; discussions; field trips; and training in field methods, experimental design, and quantitative analysis, culminating in an individual research project.
The course begins with an introduction to the fundamentals of ecology and biodiversity. Topics include marine and terrestrial biodiversity, aquaculture, population ecology and community ecology. It will also provide skill building on experimental design and quantitative analysis.
The course will then focus on considering the past, present, and future threats to a sustainable Venice, along with complex and unique local solutions using the three main pillars of sustainability (social, environmental, and economic areas).
This course is a partnership between Columbia and the University of Warwick so students can expect to be enrolled alongside Warwick students.
Pending approval by the Committee on Instruction (COI) and the Committee on Science Instruction (COSI) to partially fulfill (1 course) toward the Columbia College Core Curriculum Science Requirement and the General Studies Core Science Requirement.
Note: The University reserves the right to withdraw or modify the courses of instruction or to change the instructors as may become necessary.
Grades and Transcripts
Grading Policy
Click here for the Columbia summer program grading policies.
Transcripts
Upon successful completion of the program, grades are entered into Columbia's online grading system.
No credit is granted to students who do not complete the full program.
All courses taken on the program are converted to an American grading scale and transmitted to students as follows:
Columbia students: Grades appear on SSOL and your transcript as semester grades from courses taken at Columbia. For more information, please see the section on Academic Credit in Steps to Study Abroad.
Barnard students: Grades appear on eBear and your transcript as any semester grades from courses taken at Barnard. For more information, please see the section on Credit and Transcripts for Barnard Students on our Barnard student pages.
Non-Columbia students: can request electronic transcripts online through the Columbia University registrar.
Life in Venice
Host institutions
Columbia's Casa Muraro: Research Center for Venetian Studies is located a few steps away from the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Calle Barbaro, half way between the Gallerie dell’Accademia and the Punta della Dogana/Pinault Collection in Venice’s Dorsoduro quarter. Casa Muraro is the former home and library of the Venetian art historian Michelangelo “Mic” Muraro (1913–1991) and his wife, theater historian Maria Teresa Muraro, and was bequeathed to Columbia University in 2003 to honor the memory of Mic Muraro and to celebrate his life-long friendship with fellow art historian and Columbia Professor David Rosand (1938–2014).
University of Warwick in Venice
The program is co-hosted at the University of Warwick campus in Venice.
HOUSING
Students live in program arranged housing. More information on housing will be available in the coming weeks.
MEALS
Students are responsible for their own meals. Venice has many restaurants, bars, cafes, and pasticceries and students have the opportunity to shop at the local markets and frequent the bars and restaurants in their neighborhood on a regular basis.
VENICE
Venice, Venezia in Italian, is considered by many the most beautiful city in the world. Founded over 1500 years ago, the Venetian Republic rose to become the main European center of trade between the East and West. At the height of its power, it controlled an empire that extended north to the Dolomites and south as far as Cyprus. This is where Marco Polo set off for his historic voyage to Italy.
It is in a unique position, built on an archipelago of islets or shoals, a few kilometers from the mainland, in a lagoon protected from the open sea by the natural island of the Lido. The city is comprised of over 117 small islands, 150 canals, and more than 400 bridges. The buildings of Venice are either on natural islands or on piles of pine driven down about 7.5 meters beneath the water to a solid bed of compressed sand and clay. There are no cars; waterbuses, gondolas, and boats provide the only means of transport along a system, the main thoroughfare being the Grand Canal, lined with splendid palaces. Venice's urban fabric has not changed since the late eighteenth century, giving it a remarkably peaceful and enchanting atmosphere. One of the best ways to explore the city is to walk. It only takes one hour to get from east to west, enjoying the main attractions and discovering unique remnants of Venice's grand past in almost every corner.
People
Faculty
Jenna Lawrence, Columbia University
Dr. Jenna Lawrence is a biodiversity specialist. Her education and research experience has included work in the Peruvian Amazon, Jordan, the Dominican Republic, Kenya, and the Mekong region. As a Columbia Climate School Lecturer, she is faculty in the Sustainable Development Undergraduate Program, the M.S. Program in Sustainability Management, and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society. She also has an appointment at the American Museum of Natural History. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology at Columbia University and the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology.
Bryan Brazeau, University of Warwick
Bryan Brazeau is Associate Professor and Head of Liberal Arts at the University of Warwick, where he teaches classes on Truth and Misinformation, Underworlds, Paradises, Quests, Heroism and its Discontents, and Exile and Homecoming. He has won the Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence (2023) and the Warwick Award for Personal Tutoring Excellence (2022).
His wide-ranging research interests include Renaissance poetics, digital pedagogy, Venice and its postmodern representations, the history of emotions, and classical reception. Bryan previously held a postdoctoral research fellowship on the ERC-funded ‘Aristotle in the Italian Vernacular’ project at Warwick, working on the vernacular reception of Aristotle’s Poetics and Rhetoric and the intersections of this reception with Counter-Reformation religious culture.
He received his Ph.D. in Italian Studies from New York University in 2015 with a dissertation that examined the figure of the hero in sixteenth- century Italian Christian epic.
He is the editor of The Reception of Aristotle’s Poetics in the Italian Renaissance: New Directions in Criticism (Bloomsbury, 2020), and his articles have appeared in Renaissance and Reformation, MLN, The Italianist, California Italian Studies, Humanities and History of European Ideas. He is also a series editor for Sources in Early Poetics (Brill)Link opens in a new window.
He is currently developing a monograph on the philosophy, poetry, and literary theory of Torquato Tasso.
STAFF
Beatrice Mazzi (Project Manager, Casa Muraro - Research Center for Venetian Studies) is a PhD candidate in Italian Studies and Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University, where she expects to complete her degree in Spring 2025. Her research focuses on Italian contemporary literature, life stories, and testimony, with an interdisciplinary approach that also explores oral history, documentary, graphic novels, and gender theory.
Beatrice's academic journey is marked by a strong international and multilingual foundation. She earned her BA in Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Perugia, where she also completed an Erasmus-funded semester at the University of Sevilla (Spain). She holds an MA in Literary Translation from the University of Turin and a Master of Arts in Comparative Literature from University College London, both earned in 2010. In Spring 2020 Beatrice also spent a semester as a visiting scholar at Utrecht University, further expanding her international academic experience.
Her professional experience spans both academia and international education. Beatrice has a long-standing connection with the Columbia in Venice Summer Program, where she previously served as an Italian language instructor and program coordinator. Before joining Columbia, she worked as a language instructor for several American study abroad programs in Florence and as Programs Coordinator at the International Center of the University of Oklahoma. Since Fall 2022, she has been teaching Italian and Comparative Literature at Franklin University in Lugano, Switzerland. In her current role as Program Manager of Casa Muraro, she is working to enhance cultural and academic programming, fostering deeper engagement with Italian culture and with Venetian studies. Beatrice is passionate about leveraging her international background and extensive knowledge of Italian culture to create meaningful, transformative study abroad experiences for her students.
Financial Considerations
*Summer 2025 Tuition and Fees
Please see our cost breakdown for detailed information.
*Tuition and fees are subject to the Board of Trustees' approval and may change.
FINANCIAL AID AND SCHOLARSHIPS
If you receive financial aid during the academic year, you may remain eligible for financial aid when you attend a summer Columbia-Led Program as long as you take a minimum of 6 points.
CC/SEAS: Contact the CC/SEAS Financial Aid & Educational Planning to understand if any of your federal financial aid may cover enrollment costs for a summer program. Please note the Columbia Grant is not available for summer studies.
General Studies: Contact the GS Office of Educational Financing to understand if any of your financial aid may cover participation in a summer program.
For more general information and resources on financing your time abroad, please see the pages below:
Other students should contact their home school financial aid offices.
Funding Your Summer in Venice
GLOBAL LEARNING SCHOLARSHIPS
The Center for Undergraduate Global Engagement (UGE) offers the Global Learning Scholarship (GLS) to support Columbia students so they may enhance their undergraduate education by participating in a summer global learning opportunity.
GLS Eligibility:
You are eligible for the Global Learning Scholarships (GLS) if you are:
A Columbia College, Columbia Engineering, or General Studies student who demonstrates financial need
All other students are not eligible for the GLS
GLS Application and Timeline:
Students apply for the Global Learning Scholarship (GLS) and the Columbia-Led summer program with two separate applications.
Scholarship applications are due: February 14, 2025 (closes at 11:59 pm EST)
GLS applicants must also submit a completed program application by the program application deadline OR no later than the following: February 14, 2025 (closes at 11:59 pm EST)
To apply to the Global Learning Scholarship (GLS), please click here.
OTHER SCHOLARSHIPS
For a list of other scholarships specific to study abroad, please visit the Scholarships for Study Abroad for more information. Of note are the:
Withdrawal Policy
To learn about the financial consequences for withdrawing from the program, please read the Summer Withdrawal and Refund Policy here.
Find out More
Speak to an Adviser: Want to learn more? Make an appointment to talk with the adviser for this program!
Resources for Accepted Students (Heading 2 Collapse)