A Quarter Century in the Eternal City
Since 2001, Duquesne University students have had the opportunity to spend an entire semester studying in Rome through the Duquesne in Rome Program, balancing four days of academic classes with three-day weekends filled with discovery. Whether exploring Italy’s extraordinary cultural and historical treasures through program excursions or traveling independently across Italy and Europe, students encounter new cultures, broaden their perspectives, and open their eyes and hearts to the world around them.
Celebrating a Milestone
From Duquesne in Rome’s first rustic “campus” at the Villa Santa Cecilia in the Roman suburb of Vitinia to our modern home in the Boccea neighborhood, shared with the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, Duquesne in Rome has helped transform the lives of nearly 3,000 students. Over the past 25 years, what began as a semester-long study abroad experience has grown to include an extraordinary range of academic opportunities—from full semesters in the Eternal City to specialized Maymester programs in physical therapy, nursing, pharmacy, music and beyond.
As we look toward the next quarter-century, our focus remains on creating transformational experiences that bring learning to life. Through academic excellence, intercultural encounters, meaningful relationships and engagement with the people, history, faith, culture and communities of Italy, Duquesne in Rome will continue preparing students to see the world—and their place within it—with greater curiosity, compassion, confidence and purpose.
An Evening in Roma in Pittsburgh!
An evening of food, friendship, memories and the warmth of the Eternal City brought to life at Duquesne. Celebrate the 25th anniversary of Duquesne in Rome with us on Saturday, December 5, 2026 in the Gormley Student Union Ballroom!
Celebrate the Legacy. Support the Future.
By giving to the Duquesne in Rome program, you can help future travelers gain the life experience that can only be achieved from living abroad.
Your support can help students:
- Learn through scholarships, one-on-one mentorship, and access to exceptional faculty and
renowned guest artists/lecturers.
- Become global citizens through international travel experiences.
- Serve as ambassadors for Duquesne's mission abroad.
- Create through experiential learning opportunities.
Make a gift today and help ensure Duquesne students continue to bring artistry, purpose, and impact into the world, and back home.
Support Future Explorers
Give $25 in honor of 25 years—or choose the gift that is meaningful to you—and help support future student experiences in Rome. (Choose "other" in the dropdown menu and designate Duquesne in Rome.)
A Quarter Century of Living the Mission Abroad
Building Authentic Relationships
When Duquesne moved its Rome campus to the Boccea neighborhood in 2004, the University began looking for ways to connect students more meaningfully with the surrounding community. In 2005, a simple language exchange with nearby IIS Einstein-Bachelet High School brought Italian students studying English together with Duquesne students studying Italian. That first encounter grew into a sister-school partnership that has lasted more than two decades. More than 2,000 Italian and American students have since participated in exchanges, shared projects, teaching experiences, internships, travel, and remembrance initiatives. What began with conversation became something deeper: an opportunity for students from different cultures to learn with one another, form friendships, and discover their own communities through someone else’s eyes.
Commitment to Service
In 2016, Duquesne in Rome and IIS Einstein-Bachelet added a new dimension to their partnership through Be the Difference–Never Again. Each semester, Duquesne students with their Italian high school partners work together to research the life of a young U.S. American service member buried or memorialized at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy. Their research culminates in a personal tribute at the service member’s grave or memorial. Over the past decade, some 2,100 students have participated, and approximately 500 individual stories have been recovered and remembered. Through this experience, service becomes more than an action performed for someone else: it becomes an act of remembrance, relationship, and responsibility, inviting a new generation to confront the human cost of war and consider its own role in building peace.
Walking Alongside Others
Created in 2024, Duquesne’s HEAL Initiative (Health, Education, Awareness, and Longevity in the Mediterranean) brings students and faculty into conversation with healthcare professionals, researchers, chefs, food producers, community leaders, and residents. In Rome and Pioppi in the Cilento region of southern Italy, participants explore the Mediterranean approach to health through food, movement, environment, relationships, and community. For future healthcare professionals, the experience expands the idea of healing beyond the treatment of illness toward the care of the whole person. HEAL reflects a distinctly Spiritan posture: rather than arriving with all the answers, students learn to listen, collaborate, and recognize the wisdom already present in the people and communities they encounter.
Openness to the Spirit
Rome has long been a place where people arrive expecting one thing and discover something more. When Spiritan co-founder Francis Libermann came to Rome in 1840, illness and uncertainty had repeatedly interrupted his plans for the future. During a transformative year in the Eternal City, his missionary vocation became clearer, and the vision that would eventually help shape the Spiritan tradition took form. Nearly two centuries later, close to 3,000 Duquesne students have come to Rome and experienced transformation of their own through the Duquesne in Rome program. With students’ openness to unfamiliar cultures, new relationships, faith, study, challenge, and unexpected encounters, they are invited to move beyond what they already know and remain open to what they might become. For many, Rome does not simply become somewhere they studied—it becomes part of who they are.
Eternal Memories from the Eternal City
While studying abroad, I gained confidence. I became able to travel on my own, order food in a different language, and navigate places I had only seen in pictures with ease. Learning to believe in myself made this all possible.
Living in another country taught me to slow down, be present, and adapt to different perspectives, while embracing the unfamiliar. Those lessons continue with me today, when in new environments, meeting new people, or stepping into unfamiliar opportunities.
I found my voice when I was in Italy.
My time abroad helped me recognize that each of us is made for so much more than we sometimes imagine for ourselves. Rome did not simply give me memories to bring home. It gave me the courage to respond.
Through coursework and on-site classes, Rome gradually stopped feeling like a collection of postcard images and started to feel like a city I was truly living in. Returning to Rome afterward felt unexpectedly like coming home.
Your Home in Rome
An impressive group of largely Rome-based faculty, as well as an occasional visiting professor from the home campus, teach regular Duquesne University courses on site so you can experience the richness of this environment while making normal progress toward their degree.
Spring or fall semesters at Duquesne in Rome include:
- A Papal audience or Mass in St. Peter's Square with Pope Leo XIV
- Classes on-site in the heart of ancient Rome
- Cultural exchanges with local Italian students
- Making great lifelong friendships
- And much, much more!
Duquesne University's Italian program is housed with the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth on a beautiful property within the Acquafredda Nature Reserve west of downtown Rome and just seven miles from Vatican City and St. Peter's Basilica.
Within a walled property enclosing lovely gardens and walkways, the private and secure location holds:
- Classrooms
- Computer Labs and Wireless Internet
- A library
- Dining Room
- Recreational Areas
- Laundry Facilities
- Modern living quarters complete with private bathrooms in each double room
On-site staff include a Director, Assistant Director, Resident Director, and two Assistant Resident Directors who live there full time.
Contact Us
The Study Abroad Office is located in the Center for Global Engagement. Call or email with questions.