 Gaudet
By Patty Pitts
Kathleen Gaudet had “no Italian in my background whatsoever” when she was selected to attend grade 12 at the United World College of the Adriatic in Trieste, Italy. But that year of study started an ongoing love affair with the Italian language, leading to this year’s Humanities Jubilee Medal for being the outstanding undergraduate in her faculty.
Raised and educated in Victoria, Gaudet enrolled in UVic to study Italian and Linguistics along with German. A second trip to Italy after her first year of studies confirmed her attachment to Italian. “I’ve always been drawn to languages and linguistics in general and Italian in particular,” says Gaudet, preparing to spend yet another summer in Italy. “It’s such a musical language and has tremendous traditions in literature.”
Gaudet managed to “immerse” herself in the language, despite studying it on the West Coast, by watching Italian films and reading Italian literature. “Reading Dante and Boccaccio in their original language is so gratifying,” she says. “The English translations just don’t do them justice.”
She also made extensive use of the Internet. “There are so many online resources like Italian newspapers that are accessible for free. I don’t know what I’d do without the Internet.”
“What I will remember about Kathleen is the unwavering quality of all her contributions to the courses she took with me,” says Hispanic and Italian studies professor Lloyd Howard. “Whether it was the course on Dante in English or the one on Carlo Goldoni in Italian, her work was consistently exceptional, reflecting a rare knack for critical thinking that she communicated skillfully in two different languages.”
This summer she plans six weeks more of “la dolce vita” before leaving to begin PhD studies in Italian at the University of Toronto on a five-year scholarship. “I would love to be an Italian professor,” says Gaudet, pondering her long-term future. But first she plans to “speak Italian to Italians, lay on the beach and read Italian books and stock up on Italian DVDs” in Italy.
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