50業子

The M.A. program in Cultural Heritage: Sustainability and Community trains graduates to face the most important challenge in the heritage industry today: its long-term viability.

Rome is at the center of debates about global heritage. With major international organizations based in the city, as well as the greatest concentration of heritage monuments and works in the world, Rome serves as the ideal base from which to prepare students for a career in this field. This graduate degree program shapes a new type of professional by offering liberal arts, humanities and social science graduates the opportunity to acquire the expertise and practical skills necessary to become a heritage professional in the 21st century.

The Cultural Heritage program focuses on the community, not on state structures or institutional responses to heritage. AUR’s program aims to train students in skills that lead to roles in the heritage sector working with communities, NGOs, and other organizations to ensure the restoration and protection of sites of cultural importance.

The program does not set out to produce professionals for Italy (although it certainly has) but rather to make use of the resources of Rome and Italy that allow for practical and not just theoretical study. Our courses are not specific to sites in Italy, but Italy serves as the ideal laboratory for this kind of training.

Program objectives

• To provide an overview of the interdisciplinary nature of the field.

• To give the necessary heritage management tools in line with international, national and regional strategies to enhance cultural heritage management.

• To provide an understanding of the tools, techniques and processes for documenting and assessing cultural resources, producing management plans, and implementation.

• To foster an understanding of the role of heritage agencies and organizations at international, national, local and regional levels.

Outcomes

Upon completing the Master’s program in Cultural Heritage, students will have acquired the following skills and knowledge:

• Project management, including budgeting, fundraising and protecting heritage from exploitation by illegal trafficking.

• Appreciation of the complexity of heritage economics, its relationship to tourism, to the local community and to conservation issues.

• An understanding of the role of heritage in the broader political and legal context, including issues of contested heritage, dark heritage (heritage from periods of tragedy or war or discredited political regimes) and an understanding of the role of heritage in forming identity at the local, regional, national and transnational levels.

• Oral and written communication skills at a professional level, including the ability to debate issues with practitioners in the field.

• Planning, marketing, management and funding of sustainable heritage-related projects, including the ability to examine and critique heritage management theory.

• Plan and execute an extensive research project.

• The ability to engage with scholarly literature on the topic, appreciating each perspective in contested issues.

• Critical analysis of the use of heritage in different political, religious, social and ethnic contexts.

After graduating

Cultural heritage is becoming increasingly economically important throughout the world. Accordingly, well-trained professionals will find a range of fulfilling careers in this field.

In balancing theory and practice, this Master’s program prepares students for employment in heritage administration, development control, and consultancies, as well as for continuing in academic research.

Potential career paths for graduates of this program include:

• Employment as a project manager and/or program coordinator with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or international organizations (IO).

• Not-for-profit organizations or other organizations that are active in the field of heritage, heritage tourism and international development through heritage.

• Consultants on heritage projects, economic development projects involving heritage or tourism projects involving heritage.

• Analysts of cultural heritage, especially in relation to economic development.

• Museums and historic preservation organizations.

• Further study and/or becoming an independent researcher in the field of cultural heritage.