Dr. Teresa Picarazzi, winner of the Distinguished Service Award in the K-12 category, is a full-time, accredited teacher of Italian at Hopkins School in New Haven, CT., where she has taught since 2005. She is a current and over 25-year member of the AATI and served as Associate Editor of the AATI Newsletter from 2015-2018. Dr. Picarazzi received the Ph.D. in Italian from Rutgers University with a dissertation on the works of Natalia Ginzburg.

Dr. Picarazzi has for over twenty-five years been an active member of the Italian Studies community and promoter of Italian language and culture. Her dedication to teaching Italian is evident in both her considerable contributions to Italian language teaching and assessment and the success of her students. She has contributed extensively to the elaboration of the Advanced Placement Italian Language and Culture Exam, serving on the College Board’s AP Italian Language and Culture Development Committee (2008-2013), as independent contractor for writing and revising sections of the exam (2013-2015), and as Item Writer on the National Italian Exam Development Committee (2018 and 2019). She has been a Reader for the AP Italian Culture and Language Exam since 2018 and is currently also Item Writer on the SAT Italian Subject Test Development Committee. Colleagues who worked directly with her in these capacities have noted her vital contributions arising from her formation as specialist of both Italian literature and pedagogy, and her broad experience as educator; they also emphasize her “sound judgment and discretion,” “enthusiasm,” and “selfless willingness to help,” concluding that “her influence positively affected the establishment of a standardized curriculum and the AP Italian Language and Culture Exam in the United States and abroad.”

As instructor of Italian, Dr. Picarazzi has been praised for her “integrity, professionalism, and creative curriculum.”In her current position at Hopkins School, she has developed, as one colleague expressed it, “an exceptionally strong Italian Program” founded on traditional and experiential learning.Here, she increased the Italian language offerings for her students to include AP-level courses; successfully applied for grants from the IACE to help expand the school’s Italian curriculum; mentored students who then successfully applied for grants to study in Italy; and served as Language and Program Leader of the CIEE High School Study Abroad Program in Ferrara, Italy (2015-2017).Equally rewarding is the Sister City Program she established with both the Liceo Scientifico Da Procida in Salerno and the Liceo Marini-Gioia in Amalfi. As it “opens virtual doors for the students of each city and high school,” this project, as a colleague noted, “provides students with an indelible experience that is by no means a common practice.” Dr. Picarazzi’s commitment to teaching excellence and mentoring is also made evident by the success of her students, deemed by a colleague to be “all superbly prepared”: they regularly win medals at the annual Connecticut Council of Language Teachers Poetry Contest and many have continued studying Italian in college.

Dr. Picarazzi has also drawn on her wide-ranging expertise to contribute to the scholarly conversation on teaching Italian language and culture. She has presented, at both national and international conferences, lectures on language pedagogy, creating and teaching AP Italian courses, and developing workshops for language educators. In addition, for her valued reputation as educator, she was invited to co-author Wiley Publishing’s three volumes of Italian for Dummies, a series that extends Italian instruction beyond the traditional classroom setting to a broader and more highly diverse learning community. Dr. Picarazzi has also been an active scholar of Italian literature, publishing the monograph Maternal Desire: Natalia Ginzburg’s Mothers, Daughters, and Sisters, and articles on migration and Afro-Italian identity, topics that today constitute an essential component of the Italian curriculum. An early researcher in migration studies, she also co-authored a curriculum module entitled, “Sfide Globali: Diritti umani e Migrazioni e frontiere” for the AP Italian Language and Culture Exam. Dr. Picarazzi’s creative approach to the Italian curriculum and diligent service to the profession is an inspiration as we seek innovative ways to advance the study of Italian in the US. In recognition of Dr. Picarazzi’s efforts, a colleague has expressed the global and far-reaching value of her work, “Thanks to her background, she is in the perfect position to understand the needs of Italian both at the college level and in a high school environment: connecting these two `worlds’ is, I believe, the only way to assure the survival and the possibility of growth for the teaching of Italian in the USA, and I believe Teresa is one of the few persons who could honestly contribute to make it become a reality.”