On Friday, September 16, 2016, the Sala delle Colonne on the Viale Pola campus hosted the closing ceremony of the Multinational Battle Group West Joint Enterprise Kosovo Summer School, organized in collaboration with the Army Chief of Staff.
Participating in the ceremony were General Manager Giovanni Lo Storto, Brigade General Carlo Zontilli, Deputy Head of the III Section Use of Forces / Operational Center, and Vice Rector Roberto Pessi.
Offered to LUISS students from master’s programs and the Global Studies major in July 2016, the program allowed its participants to understand the multitude of theoretical and practical aspects that go into a mission requiring global cooperation such as Kosovo.
During his speech, General Manager Lo Storto underlined the deep bond with the armed forces. He then thanked the Army for contributing to students’ educations, making them aware of the complexities in the world, outside of textbooks, exams and campus life.
General Carlo Zontilli thanked the university for the opportunity to collaborate, stressing the program’s role in the Army’s larger collectivity initiative. The LUISS Summer School allowed students to understand the role of Italian armed forced abroad and learn concepts such as esprit de corps and teamwork.
Concluding the event, Vice Rector Pessi defined the program as: “Fundamental, and to be repeated and regularly implemented as it gives students an enormous competitive advantage, surely different from traditional internships, in understanding how the country works.”
The Summer School is divided into three phases. During the first intensive theoretic phase, students attend a military pre-departure training program. During the lessons, students learned behavioral norms crucial to life on the base, from communication to stress management, rules guiding military operations abroad, and cooperation coordination between the military and civil organizations.
During the second phase, students visited the PEC-BELO POLJE base in Kosovo, where they had the opportunity to see the troops’ daily activities and work alongside currently stationed soldiers.
Concluding the experience, students were invited to the Rome headquarters of the Army Chief of Staff to share their experiences and reflections on the program.
