Two Continents for One Course, a New Teaching Experience Will Start in February

In Italy it will be late afternoon, in the United States late morning. Two groups separated by the Atlantic, but from an educational point of view they will be a single entity, one class group with a maximum of 40 students working together. This is the innovative teaching experience promoted by Maurizio Del Conte for Università Bocconi, and Ann Hodges for the University of Richmond School of Law. They will co-teach the elective course reserved to Bocconi students in the fifth year of the Law degree in Comparative Labor and Employment Law.

"It's a highly innovative course," explains Del Conte, "which will be held at Bocconi in the new flat classrooms, whose side screens give a true sense of presence. I would like to stress that there will only be one class group, students will work at the same time on one project according to their points of view, led my myself and my American colleague."

The course, which will focus on employment law, is particularly suitable to students who are interesting in analyzing foreign legal systems, in order to compare with each other and develop a common strategy. "The students, with a maximum of 20 from each university, will work on a concrete case concerning a large US multinational and a large Italian multinational. They will tackle the case from the point of view of Italian employment law and US employment law," continues Del Conte, "which are radically different from each other. It will be interesting to see how two systems can be followed without one absorbing the other."

It will therefore be very different from more traditional distance learning, actually quite the opposite. Del Conte is very insistent regarding the "singleness" of the class, because it is this feature in particular that makes this course a true example of teaching innovation: "The class group will be Bocconi-Richmond, for all intents and purposes. I taught at Richmond for many years, but this course represents a completely new way of collaborating in teaching with the American Law School."

To register for the course, which will begin in February, students interested in applying for the remaining available spots should access the registration window between 8 and 20 January 2015.