Last spring, a group of students completing Italian 103 decided to bring the defunct Italian club back. After an initial interest meeting earlier this year, the Italian Club at UW kicked off regular autumn quarter meetings on Wednesdays, from 3:30 - 4:30pm, in SMITH 107. Below is a short interview with the Italian Club's founding president, Sophie Biernacki. Sophie is a sophomore majoring in French and minoring in Italian.
Q: What made you interested in starting an Italian club? How did you and your fellow officers go about forming the club?
A: "When a handful of us officers were taking Italian 102, we were told that there had once long ago been an Italian club at UW but unfortunately it no longer was active. We were so inspired and loved Italian class so much that we decided to dig up the skeleton and bring it back to life! Since then we have gathered even more loyal officers interested in helping and strengthened our own interest in keeping Italian alive on campus. Our goal with this club is to open a space for those who cannot fit the classic Italian language classes into their schedule to gather and have a change to speak Italian, engage with Italian culture, and more. All of the officers are undergraduates who are learning Italian themselves and hope to spark the same passion in those dipping their toes in for the first time!"
Q: How did your first few events of the year go?
A: "Our first events have been wonderful. We have really enjoyed meeting those across campus who are interested in Italian for a variety of reasons! We have been even more pleased to see how many club visitors want to learn the language itself during our meetings. The pull for Italian language speakers is strong!"
Q: What kind of events are you planning for the future?
A: "Some events we are planning in the future are organized trips to the Italian Film Festival, Cooking nights (Pizza contest, baking days, and more), and movie nights! Our longer activity based meetings will be less frequent however our language based meetings are held weekly, which means there are lots of ways to engage with the club in any capacity!"
If you are interested in joining the UW Italian Club or learning more about their events, follow them on Instagram (@uwital) or join their discord.