We recently connected with Amanda Minervini and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Amanda, thank you so much for joining us today. There are so many topics we could discuss, but perhaps one of the most relevant is empathy because it’s at the core of great leadership and so we’d love to hear about how you developed your empathy?
It isn’t so easy to talk about empathy because, especially in professional settings, it may sound too personal and vulnerable. But let’s go there: I would say that my first empathy-forming experience, besides just being in the world as a human, must have been reading novels since I learned how to read, at the same time developing some muscles while holding some really thick ones (think War and Peace; The Man without Qualities, The Divine Comedy….). Along with a passion for reading,I have also been caring for multispecies nonhumans since I can remember: birds including magpies, dogs, cats, equines, ducks, hedgehogs, rabbits, fish, turtles, mantises, and even a lamb rescued from an Easter lunch—and I never had a farm, With the exception of horses (but I can’t promise it will stay that way….), I care or cared for all these species in a regular house, in a small apartment when I was still living in Italy with my family. My father was a big animal lover and he allowed me to rescue and bring home almost every needy creature I could find or that was brought to me. I am not entirely sure if he “allowed me” to bring the rescues home or he used me as a Trojan Horse to bypass my mom’s gatekeeping. Sadly, I can’t ask him this question anymore. Additionally, becoming an educator has also contributed to making me a “hyperempath.” This is a term I made up a while ago and then I found out it was actually a thing. The advantages are that it helped me really thrive in my career as a college professor and director of an equine nonprofit: even if I teach in a niche field (technically Italian Studies, practically a lot broader, but in any case I teach in the humanities which is sadly a declining field), my courses tend to be extremely popular and well-attended. Often, I am able to become very attuned fairly quickly with nonhumans, and animals recognize that. Recently I have been retraining a former racehorse who was showing a problematic side (as some would say) that likely wasn’t going to make him thrive in a regular post-racing career. I ended up creating a nonprofit educational program around him, the Equine-Guided Learning and Healing Experience (EGLHE). This “dangerous” horse has been a wonderful teacher in empathy, patience, congruence and I now believe he made me a better teacher too.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I direct the Italian Program at Colorado College, hence I work in the doubly declining field of languages and culture within the Humanities. Until this year, half of my job was to continuously justify why to keep an Italian program, in Colorado. I did so by tuning in with students needs and expectations, designing courses that would be very attractive to them. At the moment the program is very successful, bursting at the seams with students, in complete counter-tendency from language programs’ trends in the US (data from ACTFL, MLA, ACLA). I am also the US Coordinator of the International Society of Zooanthropology, created by Italian veterinarian, philosopher and ethologist Roberto Marchesini. Next June, Marchesini and I will teach a weekend intensive seminar on horses at his Bologna human-animal interaction school, the SIUA. One of my articles is coming out shortly on the journal Animal Studies directed by Marchesini (in Italian, it’s been a very long time since I published in Italian!)
My hobby also turned into a bit of a job when I became the founding director of EGLHE. it is really interesting to notice how all my original passions have converged in my career.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Understanding when and to who ask for help, the ability to cry, good eating and exercise habits.
I think the best advice is personalized and tailored to each specific moment and situation. I don’t feel like I know enough to share general pearls of wisdom. So I’d say: find and cultivate excellent relationships with mentors. Pick them carefully: someone who is fundamentally a good human, not necessarily the most successful.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
After, in the span of two horrible years, surviving domestic abuse and a potentially deadly freak accident which left me with lingering issues—two years followed by the global pandemic, I am thriving again. I owe a lot to dear friends Ann and Andrea Baldrica (and many others), and to my therapist, Vince Bruno. Current challenges seem so small compared to those of the past, and yet each challenge deserves due attention and the knowledge that every issue eventually will go away and a new one will arrive. Currently I am living through the challenges of fundraising for EGLHE while being very busy with my job (there’s a dedicated donation button on my website).
Contact Info:
- Website: https://amandaminervini.weebly.com/
- Instagram: Aminervi
- Other: https://www.coloradocollege.edu/basics/contact/directory/people/minervini_amanda.html
https://www.coloradocollege.edu/newsevents/newsroom/2022/italian-professor-uses-horses-to-help-students-focus.html
Image Credits
Waterbound Photography Lonnie Timmons III Colorado College
