Professor Federica Gentile has been teaching classes on Gender Studies and Italian for MSU for the past three years. Her Introduction to Gender Studies is an example of excellence in the area of diversity and inclusion, as it allows students to confront contemporary issues regarding class, race, and gender that are close and deeply felt by students of all kinds. Students are able to share personal stories and feel accepted for who they are yet, contextualize their experience within a much broader theoretical framework and global system. Students often comment that Professor Gentile’s course is life changing and should be a mandatory Gen Ed class. With Professor Gentile’s Introductory Italian course, she has pioneered the adoption of the TPRS (teaching proficiency through storytelling) and CI (Comprehensible Input) teaching methods, which focus on the way our brains naturally acquire language. This happens when teachers intentionally employ a body of techniques and strategies using specific principles that prioritizes the delivery of understandable, personalized and relevant messages. By prioritizing holistic, communicative principles that lead to student interest-centered, responsive teaching practices, Professor Gentile has been able to bring students with no prior Italian language skills to engage in basic yet genuine conversation in Italian in less than 8 weeks. This is an excellent example of introducing high impact teaching practices with great success.