Loyola University Chicago

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About Us

The John Felice Rome Center in Italy offers an American undergraduate college experience in the heart of Western Europe.

Students choose from more than 40 academic courses each semester and live together to form a tight-knit community in one of Europe's largest and most captivating capital cities with considerable cultural and religious importance for more than 2,000 years.

Because the Rome Center is an actual campus and academic center of Loyola University Chicago, it is fully accredited and credits earned are easily transferable to other American universities.

The John Felice Rome Center holds the distinction of being the oldest continual U.s. university program in Italy.

For more than four decades, the JFRC has served as a fully equipped American campus, now located on Monte Mario near the site of a former Olympic Village, just 20 minutes north ofVatican City and Rome's City Center. The campus opened its doors in the spring of 1962 as the Loyola University Chicago Rome Center for Liberal Arts. The John Felice Rome Center holds the distinction of being the oldest continual U.s. university program in Italy.

In December 2004, Loyola President Michael J. Garanzini, S.J., rededicated the center to its founder, John Felice.

 

 

 

After serving in the British armed forces during World War II, Felice, a Maltese native, saw the devastation wrought by war as the byproduct of a profound lack of understanding among cultures. So, in the spirit of global healing, he created the JFRC, a first-of-itskind study-abroad program, with a focus on fostering education and tolerance among people of various
religious, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds.

The center continues to bring together students from dozens of universities and colleges throughout the United States for a
unique liVing-learning experience.