To all Italian and foreign students of the University of Bergamo in Italy and abroad
Bergamo, October 20th 2020.

Dear all,

I am writing to you a few days after my last letter, because the pandemic is rapidly evolving and is unfortunately heading towards increasingly worrying scenarios.

The two Prime Ministerial Decrees – issued respectively last week and last Sunday - together with the Lombardy Region ordinance - confirm the guidelines adopted by our University which you can find here on our website: News for the academic year 2020-2021. Happily, I can also confirm that in a meeting with the Regional Committee of Lombard Rectors, we all agreed that the measures adopted by UniBg and by all the Lombard universities comply with the provisions of the Government and the Region.

Therefore, at UniBg there will be no variations, in the terms of precautionary practices, to the arrangements reported in my last communication: all our offices guarantee the highest levels of safety. In addition, all students who are attending face to face classes can be assured that all safety measures have been implemented.

In this regard, I remind you that you must always wear a mask in all university spaces, both indoors and outdoors. All those people who, for whatever reason, do not have one can ask for one from the ushers, so as to protect both themselves and the people they may meet.

As regards to university activities, I am pleased to inform you that the IT problems related to the teaching modules have now been resolved. At the moment, we are proceeding with the multimedia implementation of classrooms which, for technical reasons, could not be used before.

Professors’ ‘ricevimento’ hours continue at a distance.

With regard to graduation discussions and proclamations, they are being organized face to face at the moment, in compliance with the social distancing rules. Each graduate may be accompanied by two people only. Each graduate is kindly requested to fill in a form where she/he declares the name of the people attending and their health conditions. This form is necessary as it will allow us to track all people present at each session, guaranteeing you will be contacted immediately in the unfortunate case of a contagion. Should conditions, guaranteeing the face to face graduation ceremonies, change we will immediately inform you and adopt alternative measures.

Since the emergency situation is continuously evolving, we will define new provisions in other sectors of our university life, if and when they are deemed necessary. I am in constant contact with the Regional Committee of Lombard Rectors, with the CRUI, with the Minister, with state, regional and local authorities in order to be able to immediately react in a coordinated way in the event of a serious development of the pandemic.

To date, no cases of Coronavirus infection have been recorded in UniBg, among either teachers, students, or university staff and librarians: this seems to me an encouraging sign and I thank you all for your ongoing sense of responsibility in your academic life.

We must continue patiently in this direction, heeding the calls for responsible behaviour advocated by national, regional and local authorities as well as being guided by our own sense of personal responsibility. I know that some of you are tired of and disappointed by these restrictions, but I also know that the will to ensure things go well prevails. We can do it! We are steadfast (but not rigid), confident (but not naive), patient (but never idle).

Stay safe, stay well.

Your Rector