News Archive

John Kinder, lover and teacher of all things Italian, is officially a star.

And the word travelled fast around UWA. Only a few days after Associate Professor Kinder learnt that he was to be awarded a prestigious Commendatore della Stella d'Italia ( Commander of the Star of Italy ) award, one of his classes burst into spontaneous applause when he entered the room and called " Bravo, bravo! "

"I've been bowled over by how pleased people are for me," A/Professor Kinder said. "My colleagues are delighted, and so are my students. And of course my family are thrilled. It's great when someone gives you a pat on the back and says thanks for something you've done, but the award also makes me think of everyone who's accompanied me on this journey: my family, my teachers, my colleagues, my students."

A/Professor Kinder, Chair of the Discipline of European Languages and Studies, received the award - Italy's second highest honour - at a reception in the Perth Town Hall earlier this month. He has taught Italian culture and language at UWA for 26 years.

The Order of the Star of Italy awards were created in 1947 by the first President of the Republic of Italy to honour Italians and foreigners who make outstanding contributions to Italy and the Italian way of life.

A/Professor Kinder first studied Italian as a university student in Wellington, New Zealand. "I fell in love with the language, the culture, the history of Italy," he said. "Learning Italian offered me a new way of being in the world, an experience of an intensity of living. There is great humanity in Italian culture - humanism was invented in Italy in the Renaissance."

After completing his Honours in Italian in NZ, he worked as an English teacher and translator in Milan for several years, where he met his wife, Silvia, with whom he has three sons, three daughters and a grandchild. He also taught Italian at James Cook and Flinders Universities.

In 1988, he was invited to UWA - which in 1929 had been the first university in Australia to teach Italian. Apart from his four years as the first Director of the Arts Faculty's Multimedia Centre, A/Professor Kinder has taught Italian to thousands of students, about half of them with an Italian background.

Since the introduction of New Courses in 2012, which encourages students to undertake units of study across a broad range of faculties and disciplines, the numbers of students studying Italian and other languages at UWA has doubled, he said.

He was recommended for the award by the Italian Embassy in Canberra. Over many years, A/Professor Kinder has collaborated with the Italian Embassy and its consul in WA to organise concerts, lectures, debates and other events that promote Italian culture.

"Contact with Italy changed my life and I enjoy giving my students critical intellectual exposure to the same language and culture," he said.

"This award is a way of recognising a Faculty that is doing something right in languages."