The interview with Renzo Guolo, from Treviso, full professor of sociology and outgoing vice-rector of the Bo with responsibility for the right to study. He was an influential member of the rector Rizzuto’s team, and the “great elector” of Daniela Mapelli
TREVISO. “The election of the new director of the Bo is a guarantee of the future for the presence of the University of Padua in Treviso, but the new scenarios produced by the pandemic, and the related technological leap, require a qualitative leap for the union between Treviso and the university “.
This is Renzo Guolo, from Treviso, full professor of sociology and outgoing vice-rector of the Bo with responsibility for the right to education. He was an influential member of the rector Rizzuto’s team, and the “great elector” of Daniela Mapelli, the psychologist who defeated the jurist Patrizia Marzaro in the ballot (53.67% against 46.33%), and the first woman to lead the University of Padua in eight centuries.
The arrival of Medicina in Treviso, the strategic choices of the latest Manildo and Conte administrations (universities in the center and not outside the walls), the supercampus project envisioned by the Cassamarca Foundation, Bo and Ca ‘Foscari and the Municipality in an unprecedented synergy, are only recent stages in the new university history of the city.
Guolo, why are you calling for a qualitative leap?
«First of all: I speak from Treviso, as well as as a teacher who has measured himself with the complex problems of governance of a large university like Padua. The great future choices are up to the new rector, I care about the fate of the city. As Mapelli recalled, the imperative is to return to the classroom immediately, to restore a mode of transmission of knowledge and a pedagogical-educational model that no technology, however advanced, can replace. The human factor is essential in this dimension, but there are those who now question the classic model of transmission of knowledge, I think we must resist this solicitation. And courses such as Medicine see the clinical aspect closely linked to hospitals, therefore they will always have an irreplaceable presence factor. But for other courses? Think carefully, you touch on the container aspect ».
Are you saying that we have to move from containers to contents?
“Yes. The future is played on strong choices, starting with investments in research centers that produce knowledge destined to spill over the territory. The decentralized model in the university of the accelerated technological revolution makes sense if it is not fungible, if it does not provide knowledge that can be borrowed remotely. Only the realities capable of producing specialized research, innovation or general culture, the result of a transmission of non-standardized knowledge, will be saved ”.
Do you have a model?
“Bologna has created decentralized poles in Forlì and Ravenna, around departments. Padua could think of an organizational system similar to Treviso and Vicenza. But these offices should become specialized research centers, organized around the departments that are the driving force. A model opposed to the logic of licitization, of decentralization only, of the mere “classrooms plus teachers”. The university is not only didactic, but research and a third mission, the dissemination of research results in society. Obviously, for such a change all the stakeholders, public and private, must be involved. And you need to have a vision of the processes. If there are new problems, the gaze must change. Rilke would say: the future enters us long before it happens ».
Are you talking to politics? To the categories? To associations?
«Everyone, this paradigm shift must find us ready. The ruling class, not just citizens, must be up to par. And it is wrong to make it only a matter of expense, it is an investment destined to mark the territory in the future ».
Here everything still revolves around real estate risk.
«Buildings that risk finding themselves empty if you insist on old logic. We need to think about the effects of the rapid change ».
You were a great elector of the new rector.
«I worked with Daniela Mapelli, side by side, for six years. I consider her to be a person of great ability, capable of competently guiding the Bò which, under her guidance, can become even more competitive than it already is today ».