"These are the days of the curriculum vitae rather than the dolce vita."

Today I read a very interesting article on the BBC about an Italian university that is planning on teaching the vast majority of it's courses in English and English only.  They believe that it will increase the international reputation in an increasingly global climate for higher eduction.  I won't reiterate everything that has already been said in the article, you can read that yourselves, I just wanted to talk about it.

I understand that these days it is increasingly important for universities to open themselves up to the world outside their own country, but to me this decision seems to be a step too far.  I totally understand the need for courses in English.  We live in a world where English is used in many fields, I was in a class recently where all the research in this field of linguistics has been done in Britain/America and so the vocabulary is all in English.  To be able to take this course the Spanish students have to show a certain level of English and I see that makes sense.  I also understand that it makes sense for international institutions to teach a certain amount of business courses in English, and there are universities everywhere that have been doing that for a few years now.  To me, however, an Italian university making the decision to teach the vast majority of its undergraduate courses, and all of its graduate classes, in English doesn't quite sit comfortably.  By all means, teach some or even most of the classes that require English vocab and skills in English but why go the whole way?  What about the arts, architecture, classics and other courses that arguably the Italians know more about than the majority of the Anglophone world?  Are they not just risking diluting their own culture whilst striving to do the opposite and bring themselves up on the gobal scale?  A good example from the BBC article was from someone comparing the use of languages to watching films.  When you speak to someone with the same native tongue as yourself it is like watching a film in colour with surround sound, you get all the detail, everything that has been put into it, total understanding and the full experience.  Speaking with someone in a language that isn't the mother tongue of  one or both parties is more like watching a film in black and white, whilst it is still a pleasant experience and things can be learnt, culture shared etc it doesn't quite match.  Why do this to the teaching of all courses?  One way or another the teaching is going to be diluted, it's never going to match up to the way it was before.

As the title says (quoted from the BBC article) These are the days of the curriculum vitae rather than the dolce vita.  This is the way things are moving.  But I for one don't want to watch a pattern occurring and English "taking over" more than it is already going to, and that is coming from a native English speaker.  I'm not sure if this is more a reflection on the Italian language than that of the English however, recently more than one English university has decided end the teaching of Italian, but that is a whole other story I'm sure....