FRIT's Graduate Students during an Autumn 2019 Event. From left to right: Lawrence Gianangeli, Aleksandra Suslina, Fiona Ward, Demetrio Antolini, Laurenzo DeCamilla, Thierno Diallo, Erik Scaltriti, Kirby Childress, Michela Bertossa, Genevieve Berendt.
The French and Italian Graduate Student Association (FIGSA) is an important part of FRIT and the graduate student experience. The organization is run by students who are elected by the department’s graduate student body. FIGSA has its own budget, separate from the department. A detailed constitution outlines the organizations purpose, which is to serve as the voice of graduate students in FRIT, ensure that they are properly represented within the department, and to promote career development and intellectual and social exchange among graduate students.
“FIGSA is a tool that we have as graduate students to express ourselves and invite speakers who we are really interested in,” says Demetrio Antolini, the President of FIGSA. FIGSA usually invites several guest speakers to Ohio State throughout the academic year. It also participates in large scale events organized by the department such as conferences and symposia.
Due to the pandemic, it was impossible to organize events during autumn of 2020. To make up for this, FIGSA decided to try a new thing: a virtual book club amongst FRIT’s graduate students, spearheaded by Vice President Michela Bertossa. Since the students are lacking the interaction they usually experience within the department and inside the graduate student shared office, the Book Club provided an opportunity for much needed social exchange. “We felt a need to create a space where we can interact and discuss our work without the pressure of a graded course,” says Bertossa.
At the beginning of the year, FIGSA created a list of suggested readings and welcomed additional suggestions from participants. Many readings touched upon the socio-political events of the year. “We wanted to focus on what is happening around us right now and in our fields of study, and how to make sense of it as graduate students, as international students, and as instructors,” explains Bertossa. This year the Book Club is an experiment, but based on how it goes, FIGSA might consider continuing it in the future.
In spring 2020 FIGSA will host two virtual speakers: Camilla Hawthorne – Assistant Professor at UC Santa Cruz with a focus on racial politics of migration and citizenship, inequality, social movements, and Black geographies, and James Genova – Professor on the Ohio State Marion campus and a specialist in the history of modern Francophone West Africa. The selection of speakers reflects the interests and beliefs of FRIT’s graduate students. The #BlackLivesMatter movement is not limited to the US. Parallel situations are happening all over the world, including Italy, France, and the Francophone world. “We wanted to invite speakers who are representative of who we are and what we believe,” says Samanta Buffa, FIGSA’s Treasurer.
FIGSA will also participate in organizing a virtual Media Studies Symposium at Ohio State in May, along with Italian faculty members Jonathan Mullins and Dana Renga.
As the Covid-19 pandemic sent both classes and socialization into a virtual mode, FIGSA also took on an emotional support role. FRIT students set up a WhatsApp group called “FIGSA Hotline.” It’s a place to check in, share, ask questions, and most importantly, “to understand that we are all in the same boat and we all need support,” says Buffa. Bertossa notes that this year FIGSA has had a more prominent role and has fostered cohesion among graduate students.
Being involved with FIGSA has many benefits. To Bertossa, “It is a great opportunity to have your voice heard as a graduate student.” Organizing events and symposia also allows members to get a glimpse of how academia looks from the inside. “Sometimes you don’t get to see this until you are a faculty member, but this way we get a preview,” says Bertossa.
Buffa stresses FIGSA’s role in connecting graduate students and helping them learn from each other. “It allows you to grow together, and to be enriched by other people’s thoughts,” she says. For Buffa, who joined FRIT as a graduate student this fall, FIGSA has had an especially significant role in getting to know other students.
To make the FIGSA more visible, both within the department and the university, Bertossa is working on a website for the organization. The website will help new students know what FIGSA is and how they can benefit from it. It will also serve as a blog where students can share their work.
This year members of FIGSA also include Genevieve Berendt as Secretary, Aleksandra Suslina as Officer of Social Media, and Kirby Childress and Lawrence Gianangeli as General Officers.
