Bergamo, March 26th, 2020

Dear all,

I hope you and your loved ones are doing well.

My message is now becoming a regular occurrence and I am realizing that, in addition to the need to communicate new emergency management and organizational developments, it is mainly an opportunity for me to maintain direct contact with you, to renew my closeness to you and remind you that your responsible behavior, tenacity and seriousness are a source of pride for me. Thank you all!

Thank you also for your participation in the online lessons, a large and continuous participation, which is definitely a very positive thing, also considering the workload that it requires you. I have just received an email from a student in which she shows me the physical and, especially, psychological fatigue of following all the lessons online, a condition that - she claims - also affects others among you, distressed by the terrible circumstances we are living. I am sincerely sorry for that and, even if I am still convinced that all of you 'deserve' to receive an adequate, appropriate and complete preparation despite (better said, even more so, given) the disastrous times, I will ask teachers to adjust the weight of the lessons again, as they already did a few weeks ago.  

Bearing in mind that the first weeks of online lessons have inevitably been a test and have mainly had the purpose of better knowing your opinions on the matter, we also prepared an online questionnaire to collect your feedbacks:

Online teaching evaluation questionnaire

I would like to ask you to fill it in if possible by March 31st  and I would like to remind you that we are very interested in understanding your impressions and experiences in this regard.

Since my communication last Friday, I have also received several requests for clarification regarding the new measures taken: in particular, some of your representatives have taken it upon themselves to inform me about the concerns or uncertainties that have emerged.

I will try to dispel any doubts, point by point, but I would like to inform you from the very beginning that you can find all the necessary information, constantly updated, on our university website, to which I will also often refer in this communication:

Spring Session 2020: what will change

ORAL EXAMINATIONS

• The spring session oral examinations will be carried out remotely. To learn in detail about the procedures, please refer to the Regulations that were approved last 20th March.
• The new dates were published just today on the website page I just mentioned and have a notice of at least 5 days before the overall start of the exams.

WRITTEN EXAMINATIONS

• When possible and after careful judgment of the teacher, written exams will be converted into oral exams. If this is not feasible, we will try to find an alternative method by the end of April (considering that the degree session is extended until 15th June). This last solution will obviously be adopted only if allowed by the emergency measures: otherwise, we undertake to propose alternatives before the beginning of the June 2020 session.

SPECIAL DEGREE SESSION

Calendar

The new calendar for the proclamation of three-year degrees and the online discussion of single-cycle master's or master's degrees was also published online (you can consult it on the page of the University website I already indicated).

Delivery methods and deadlines

• The deadlines for submitting a graduation application remain unchanged.
• The deadlines for the delivery of final papers and theses can instead be extended on the basis of the new discussion schedule: in agreement with Department Directors, we will establish the new deadlines, that will be communicated directly to the graduating students.
• As for the theses discussions, I advance you that there will be at least 5 working days between the publication of the detailed calendar, with the respective committees, and the beginning of the first discussions.

I remind master's degree students that tomorrow, March 27th, the deadline for them to specify their preference on the thesis procedure they prefer will expire:

Special session of the 2018-2019 academic year – Choice of the graduation procedure

CURRICULAR INTERNSHIPS

Those who regularly started their curricular internship provided for in their course of study and had to suspend it due to the emergency still in progress, may complete it within the time established in the course calendar, again in the way specified on the website that I already mentioned.

Those who have not yet started their curricular internship due to the difficulty identifying host institutions, but wish to graduate in the 2020 summer session

• may agree with the reference teacher an alternative activity, in accordance with the outgoing professional profile, that will allow them to obtain the same number of CFUs (i.e. laboratories, exams of their choice, ...) provided for in the structure of their course of study.
• if what specified in the previous point is not possible (i.e. for the Business Economics Course), the student will have to prepare an additional report (that will not replace the internship report or the final three-year report), on a topic defined by the Course Council (CCS) in line with the training path undertaken.

PROFESSIONAL INTERNSHIPS

With regards to the professionalizing internships in Psychology, we decided to extend the deadline for the submission of the training project to 8th April 2020, taking into account the critical situation we are experiencing.

I hope I gave you all the indications you needed, but I still invite you to check and keep in check – the continuous metamorphosis of the situation could lead to new changes – the page on our website that contains all the necessary information and that I will mention once again for your convenience: Spring Session 2020: what will change.

Another suggestion that I would like to give you, also in order to have faster and more precise answers – the work of my staff in these days, as you can imagine, is very intense –, is to always contact the university department that is most competent for your questions, such as for example the Department to which your Degree Course belongs for lessons, degrees and examinations or the Internship Office for questions concerning curricular internships or the Placement Office for extracurricular and professionalizing ones.

I would also like to inform you that, considering the ever-changing emergency context, we cannot give you any information about the summer session (examinations, degrees, internships): I ask you to wait patiently for more suitable times, without insisting on looking for information that not even we can know at the moment. Thank you.

Speaking of patient resistance, the term "resilience" is used a lot in this period, especially in its psychological meaning of being able to react to adverse conditions, to overcome difficulties. Psychologist Pietro Trabucchi, who has extensively dealt with this topic in the sports field, states that etymologically "resilience" derives from Latin resalium, pointing out how someone suggestively linked this word to the gesture of "getting back on" a boat capsized by the stormy sea.

It is a rich image, that somewhat condenses what we are called to do in this dramatic moment in history, when we are forced to face a sort of 'upside-down world', where all our reference coordinates disappear and time is 'suspended': our doctors and nurses – I would like to take this opportunity to thank them immensely once again – who too often turn into patients; our loved ones who could, unintentionally, be a vehicle for illness (or vice versa); our sick or elderly people who, in order to be cared for, must be left alone and far away; students who become improvised computer and social media teachers for their teachers; doggies who take their owners for a walk; and so on.

We are all a little lost, upside down... That is why it is important to show resilience, but only in part. An object is defined resilient when, thanks to its characteristics of elasticity, is able to absorb the energy of a bump or when it is able to regain its original shape after undergoing a deformation (what the net of the tennis racket does, for example). In my opinion, we do not have to strive to go back to the way we were before the pandemic, which I guess is impossible for anyone. Instead, we must try to cushion the immense shockwave we are living, but taking advantage of the reversed perspectives that we are experiencing and that will allow us to no longer make the mistakes (system, society, family) of the past. Let us try it! We will find ourselves grown and changed (for the better)!

From my usual and affectionate meter of distance, I trust in you. And I embrace you.

Your Rector

Professor Remo Morzenti Pellegrini