photo: Marta Burdiel Gutiérrez
If you have questions about a master's program at UNISG, chances are you will meet Caterina Votta. Fount of knowledge, unfailingly patient, and an expert at guiding prospective students through the UNISG application process, she is a lifeline for students who have recently uprooted their lives. Votta, 29, who trained as a translator in French and English, was working as an assistant to the director of a bottling company before coming to UNISG.
Votta is a native of Parma and the Emilia-Romagna region, but despite growing up in such a fertile foodie area, she admits that food is not her “first or most important passion.” The true passion of this mild-mannered tutor-cum-wonder-woman is actually music —British music to be precise—a passion that inspires her to travel regularly to the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, being Italian, food still resonates strongly: “I think that for Italians food is always very important…people when going out in the pub speak about recipes—I think this is something unusual.” The primacy of food in Votta's life, and that of all Italians, goes some way to explaining why she was keenly interested in the job offer at UNISG, despite never having heard of Slow Food.
Votta walked away from a planned move to the U.K. to enter the UNISG fold in January 2006, just after the Master of Food Culture and Communications was launched. She became the sole tutor for the course, in addition to leading all stages to France for the Pollenzo undergraduate program and the second Colorno master. The breadth of the tutor position is immense: part logistician, part agony-aunt, part sergeant major. The success of a stage can rise and fall on the efficiency and temperament of the tutor responsible. During Votta's first year at UNISG the significance of her role hit home: “I did all the field trips with the students. It is very difficult to be only one tutor. Any emergency or unexpected thing could happen. At the end of the year I was completely…without batteries. That is why we are now four people in the tutor office and it is much better because it is a very complicated role.” The staff increase allows tutors to rotate between stages within the two master's programs, spreading out the workload.
After her first year at UNISG, Votta felt she needed a more balanced work experience and moved into her current position as Secretary, while continuing tutorial involvement in the French stages. “I have to deal with all the bureaucratic things that you probably do not notice but are very often happening,” says Votta.
Despite being a Slow Food innocent when she started at UNISG, Votta now believes that it is necessary to be invested in the non-profit's goals to be happy working at the university. “If you have the motivation…it is the reason why you do your job well.” She nonetheless believes the university has formed its own identity, independent of Slow Food. The diversity in the backgrounds and passions of the staff, students, and academics at UNISG indicate that the connection to Slow Food is important historically, but not necessarily doctrinal. As Votta sees it, “The goal is not to teach Slow Food, the goal is to teach food culture.”— Rani Narulla