Bergamo, december 22nd 2020

Dear students,

as promised, I’m here again writing to you just a few days before Christmas, to share with you some thoughts, intended first of all as good wishes, and as a means to “meet” you in this moment, so wound up in concern and hope.

In these latest weeks, I have received some letters from you, or even from your parents, asking me to start again with the lessons in presence, so as to pick up again the social relations which are such an essential part of University life… though reluctantly, I have to always answer that we cannot  – neither want to – go against the safety regulations established by the relevant Authorities. But I also answer that I, just as all the teachers and staff of UniBg, can’t wait to be able to go back to our premises and see you all in person, discussing with you about study issues, listening and talking to you or, simply, having a chat during the breaks.

In this wish, we devote a special thought to the freshly enrolled students… meaning we have in our hearts all those who are now in their first year and have not yet been able to closely explore their study place, nor to meet their teachers and fellow students. I’m asking all those students who already feel “at home” in UniBg – and know all the best studying areas, the quietest library areas, the green areas in which to meet when it’s not too cold and the quickest way to the coffee vending machines –, to welcome them and give them all indications. To guide them in this new experience. When, of course, this will be possible. When we shall all go back to University and be once again together, in person.

A few days ago, I received an e-mail from a significant group of fresh graduates from Educational Sciences, telling me about their graduation experience in times of Covid: a difficult experience, but at the same time strengthening… but what impressed me most from their collective message was a strongly affirmed belief, in feeling together, beyond all, a proud belonging to UniBg community.

I want to dedicate to them, to all our graduates and to all of you, the new anthem by Luberg, University of Bergamo Graduates Association: you can listen to it in this video, interpreted by the voices and instruments of Mizar, a quintet of young musicians who, through the words of the anthem, invite you to follow your dreams and make them real.

For us, working every day to keep our community alive and in place, this proof of dedication by young people, be they educators or musicians (or humanists, engineers, lawyers or business people), who commit themselves to improving society, represents a fresh wind of joy and trust not only for the future, but also for the present. Personally, I also like to interpret the recent graduates message as a positive demonstration of the fact that, though through some difficulty, it’s possible to keep connections and cultivate friendships even at a distance.

This doesn’t mean, of course, not promoting activities in presence. I wish to reassure everyone that, as soon as it will be allowed, we will go back to our quarters: we shall do this certainly, and even if, probably, for someone it’s actually more convenient to follow (or hold) lessons from home: convenient doesn’t always mean suitable, especially when University education is at stake. Learning to trace one’s own life path – and as teachers we renew this process each time we approach new students – means not avoiding hard work, but rather trying to negotiate difficulties and, most of all, daring, or better “daring to know”, as our friend Prof. Ivano Dionigi encourages us to do, following the ancient Romans’ example.

This applies also to the current festivities. Much, maybe too much, has been said about this year’s Christmas holidays, arriving at a moment in which, actually, they don’t seem to belong, filled as it is with anxiety, tiredness, suffering and, unfortunately, still too many losses. Far seem the days in which smiles, embraces and celebrations, each December, allowed us to recognize Christmas for what it is, a celebration, religious in essence but holding strong spiritual meaning even for those who don’t believe, able to unite us to family and friends, encouraging us to stay together through ritual actions repeated every year and passed on through the generations.

Christmas 2020 will be – actually, already is – different, due to anti-contagion restrictions, which are ever more important now. We know and we’re ready. We will give our best try at ‘Grin and bear it’, or ‘Grin and Christmas it’.

This is the true difference in this year’s festivities: in the ability to rediscover, through the silence, voids, anomalies which unwillingly we will go through, a revolutionary moment of rebirth, in which, without all the excess we were used to and thinking about the dear ones that we cannot embrace, we can be touched by hope and by the wish to change for the better. We should be able, thus, to adopt a different prospective, searching not for the many words – often superfluous and rhetoric – which usually invade the month of December, but for the white spaces between them… Exactly these white spaces, intervals for pause, allow us to build sentences: thus, let’s interpret them as silences full of potential, openings to unexpected dialogues, to many forms of communication, many ways of feeling united (even though separated in our different homes).

In a letter to his friend Lucilius (Epistula ad Lucilium XXIII), Seneca wrote:

I wish you to never be without joy, that it may find place in your home: and this happens if it is inside you. Other forms of glee leave the heart empty, they are just on the surface, unless you think that joy is truly expressed through laughter: the soul needs to be happy, self-assured and raise above all events. True joy, believe me, is a serious topic.

Joy “is a serious topic”, a deep and stern (lately a commonly used adjective) sentiment which, to lie deeply in our homes and hearts, must bear the right weight. It’s up to us to give it its weight, the right care.

I wish that you and your families will be able to find, or rather build, this joy: while thinking about the embraces that this Christmas won’t allow, imagine a strategy to keep them cherished and ready for action when you will be able to meet again the people, relative and friends far away. I know you can do this.

We shall be back in contact in January 2021, when I expect the regulations to be updated and we shall organize our didactic activities based on the new safety rules. In the meantime, I must let you know that we have decided to uniform the second semester calendar beginning: all graduation courses’ lessons will start on Monday February 22.

But now, let’s concentrate entirely on the coming festivities, which I hope will also be a moment for personal energy charging. I embrace you from afar, attaching a little card with my wishes and thanking you all for the patience and responsibility you are showing.

Your “Rettore”,

Prof. Remo Morzenti Pellegrini