Sapienza inauguration (Ansa)
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February 25, 2021The inauguration ceremony of the 2020-2021 academic year, 718th since its foundation, took place this morning in the Aula magna of the Rectorate of Sapienza. It is the first inauguration chaired by Antonella Polimeni in the role of director of the University.
In the lecture given by the rector entitled "Inequalities, social mobility and education: what role for the University?", The thread proposed is that of the link between inequalities, higher education and inclusion processes and the role of the university in ensuring to all "the conditions to improve, to rise, to touch the sky".
For the rector, it should be strongly reiterated that "access to education, training and learning is a tool for reducing inequalities. Perhaps the university is not a sufficiently powerful engine of mobility to counter the exploding effect of inequalities. , but it is certainly the best we have to date ".
La Sapienza "is committed, today more than ever, to putting all its energies and skills - adds Polimeni - at the disposal of this overall project, what I would call the Fourth Mission of the University: the mission aimed at encouraging the growth of people, also and above all, to favor the growth of those who are most disadvantaged, of those in the corner, to favor a true and extensive pluralism, which is capable of putting everyone, finally and substantially, on the same level of potential , opportunities and merits ".
The assumption on which the rector Polimeni is based is very clear: "There are no predefined opportunities only for some, nor positions crystallized only for the benefit of some individual. Anyone who wants to must be able to rise; and it is also the task of the university to ensure that this happen ".
But the Rector emphasizes, "even today the chances that each of us have of being realized in the course of our lives depend on gender, parental income, skin color, migratory background, health conditions and other factors in constant mutual interaction ".
The factors that accumulate from father to son trigger what can be defined "the intergenerational reproduction of inequalities. Advantages, even small ones, along each of these dimensions can add up to generate wide privileges, enormous distances and substantial injustices".
For Antonella Polimeni, "our civilization is measured in the effective capacity to ensure inclusion for people with disabilities, to overcome the gender gap and to guarantee equal opportunities, rights and participation in social and economic life. The pandemic has dramatically widened the gap in inequality , which by enhancing their devastating effects and giving rise to a vicious circle capable of hindering the exercise of fundamental rights, first of all the right to education ".
"Leaving large sections of the population behind in accessing increasingly pervasive scientific information and technologies would not only mean condemning them to a lower standard or quality of life, but would also represent the end of the democratic and liberal ideal of equality for all citizens, at least in the starting conditions, and the denial of the premises of the rule of law ".
A minute of silence was observed at the inauguration of the Sapienza academic year for the death of Ambassador Luca Attanasio and Carabiniere Vittorio Iacovacci, killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The rector of Sapienza invoked him at the beginning of the ceremony. Among those present: the President of the Senate, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, the President of the Chamber, Roberto Fico, the Minister of Regional Affairs, Maria Stella Gelmini, the Minister of Equal Opportunities, Elena Bonetti, the Minister of Youth Policies, Fabiana Dadone, the Minister of University and Research, Maria Cristina Messa, the Minister for Disabilities, Erika Stefani, the Undersecretary to the Prime Minister, Franco Gabrielli and the Mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi.