PAOLO MANTEGAZZA: RETTORE DELL’UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO

Abstract

Paolo Mantegazza has been Rector of the University of Milan for four consecutive mandates, from 1984 to 2001, after having been for 10 years Dean of the Medicine and Surgery Faculty (from 1974 to 1984). His rectorship period has been a time of great change in the society but also in university, as a result of the Universityre form law, Decree 382, passed in 1980. In 1989 the law no. 168 granted to the universities the statutory and regulatory autonomy as provided for in the art. 33 of the Constitution. In those days there has been a great increase in the number of students too, particularly in the University of Milan. While in the academic year 1983-1984, at the beginning of Paolo Mantegazza’s rectorship, the registered students were 63.450, in the following years the student number has increased to almost 100.000, thus entailing an intensive work to make suitable the teaching performance and the overall activity for such a huge number of students. Paolo Mantegazza has directed the University trying to carry out this ever-growing task, acting on different fronts. Considering among these the total regulatory framework of the Athenaeum. Actually he has promoted the introduction of a new statute (1996) and the approval of the main rules, implementing the University autonomy. The great growth of the Athenaeum caused different problems: the increasing of the teaching staff to cope with the huge numberof students, but new buildings too. In this last regard he did a lot in different areas in the interest of the great part of the Athenaeum faculties. Nevertheless the dimensions reached by the University of Milan required a more far-reaching plan to carry out the decongestion of the Athenaeum. He worked towards the doubling of some faculties and the creation of new degrees and new faculties. However it was very soon clear that the most rational solution consisted in the institution of a second Athenaeum in Milan, already assumed when the three-year plan 1991-1993 had been compiled. Thus in 1998 the University of Milan Bicocca was born. In the same year, with the contribution of Paolo Mantegazza and the University of Milan, together with the Pavia University, was instituted the Università dell’Insubria, with branches in Como and Varese. In 1996 was instituted the Vita e salute San Raffaele University too, with a great contribution of the University of Milan during the rectorship of Paolo Mantegazza, transferring there several teachers of the Medicine and surgery Faculty without forgetting the role of Mantegazza as President of Medicine in supporting a University Center in Brescia and the following establishment in 1982 of an independent university. The commitment of Mantegazza for the development of the scientific research in the University has been wide-ranging. At the end of his rectorship the University of Milan was the first Italian university in different international rankings concerning the scientific production. Thanks to these results, at the end of his rectorship in 2002, the University of Milan has been the only University invited to be one of the 12 european universities called up to found the “League of European Research Universities” (best known as LERU) that connects the most prestigious European Universities. During his rectorship he performed his duties (for two mandates) as Vice President of the Rectors Conference of the Italian Universities. He has been a rector of human qualities, with a great operative capability together with a gentle nature. He was sensitive to the student needs, considering the teaching and the student education the first goal of the University. Soon after the end of his Rectorship the then Minister of Education, University and Research, Letizia Moratti, accepted the modification of the Statute of University that in the meantime had been proposed, with the addition of a new article (Art. 56) stating: “In consideration of the merits and the decisive commitment given to the Athenaeum during his rectorship, we confer to Paolo Mantegazza the honouring of Rector Emeritus”.