Arcadia Italy

In 2013, Stephan Hassam, an International Studies major from Loyola University Chicago, spent his Spring semester abroad at the Arcadia Sicily Center. As he had always been fascinated by archaeology and ancient civilizations, he took a variety of courses in archaeology, ancient history and Greek and Latin languages, while doing further readings to reinforce his background. During that period, he developed a great interest in archaeology that led him to extend his program, leading him to participate in the Archaeological Field Study in Italy program which runs during the Summer in Sicily. Afterwards, in 2014, he went on to serve as our teaching assistant during another fieldwork campaign, and continued his research on Greek and Roman Sicily with me.

In January of 2015, Stephan and I presented the preliminary results of our research, entitled ‘Shards of a Roman City: Arcadia University Archaeological Explorations in Syracuse, Sicily’, at the 116th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America held in New Orleans. More recently, capitalizing on the great scientific and cultural experiences he has had with Arcadia in Sicily, he was published in The Compass, an online scholarly journal edited and produced by students in the Arcadia University Honors Program. 

Stephan was recently accepted to the Masters in Science program in Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee with a specialization in Archaeology and plans to come back to Siracusa to work with us as an assistant in the third campaign of excavations at the Catacombs of St. Lucy.
He is an emblematic example of how studying abroad with Arcadia in Sicily can broaden your horizons, facilitate your career, give you real opportunities to make the difference in the field of academic research, and change your life.