Alumna Marlena Figge (B.A. ‘20 Italian, English), began her UD career as a Chemistry major, but when she found out upon arrival in Irving that an Italian B.A. was in the offing, she declared as an Italian major—even BEFORE the major had gained official status. During her time on campus, Marlena was an Italian tutor and mentor, studied in Rome, and was a camp counselor at both an Italian-language immersion summer camp in northern Minnesota and at an Italian-language day-camp in Chicago. Marlena spoke no Italian when she began her study at UD, but in just three-and-a-half years she went from a 50-word essay to writing, in Italian, an outstanding, 25-page senior thesis comparing the poetry of Keats and Dante. After graduation she earned two scholarships and completed an M.A. in Italian at Middlebury College before returning to Italy in 2022-2023 with a SITE Fellowship to work as an English-language teaching assistant at the Istituto d'Istruzione Superiore (IIS) Dandolo in Brescia. Marlena now writes a regular feature on literature—often Italian—for the international media organization The Epoch Times and has published pieces on Italian authors such as Michelangelo, San Francesco d'Assisi, Dante, and Giacomo Leopardi.