Fabio D'Ambrosio publisher

Receive Editor of Casabella and gladly publish the open letter written by Francesco Dal Co
and addressed to the Italian Minister, Madam Mariastella Gelmini 774 number that will appear in February 2009.

Dear Minister Mariastella Gelmini,
since Casabella is a monthly, it may happen that some considerations to your attention that I should be reformulated before long the light of the results of action taken in that time interval between the writing of these lines and the publication of the magazine. But I believe that some of the questions I'll tell you it can not be rapidly resolved and the decisions taken by the Government in early January 2009. For years Casabella draws attention to the degradation of the Faculty of Architecture of the Italian university, that she has found. The proof is the appropriate decision taken by you at the end of 2008 to suspend the procedures for the recruitment of new teachers as well as your references to compliance with administrative policies fixed by the universities, deeds, these, which, however, have followed the deliberations more disappointing under Decree Law 180. That said and to limit the problems that interest Casabella, allow me to remember, especially for readers of the magazine, what is the situation in recent years the proliferation of new Faculty of Architecture and related degree courses produced in our country. The data that I report are rounded down and those obtained from the official websites of the universities. From this examination shows that are in operation in Italy 25 Faculty of Architecture and more than 200 degree courses, whose names make it even more eloquent, if possible, these figures. Similar data show that all the "reforms" adopted by the Italian University in recent decades have aggravated the corporate bulimia, further stimulated by an exogenous factor such as the explosion of "local appetites, in turn favored dall'acquiescenza demonstrated by Public Administrations to the aspirations, almost always poorly motivated, the most diverse communities to host universities.

This has resulted in the dispersal of resources, the deterioration in the quality of teaching staff, the increase in insecurity and has dramatically reduced the propensity to mobility of the younger part of the Italian population. This is based on an assumption that no "reform" has failed to address (and now they have a confirmation), or the fact that in Italy, unlike what happens in many countries, the degree is recognized as a legal value , also "indirect", considered a prerequisite for access to the professions or competitions. Since the qualifications awarded by different Universities all have the same value, it follows that the degree is now an undifferentiated "delivery" does not certify that the successful completion of a training and does not guarantee an effective selection. This implies that the Educational Institutions, namely the universities, are increasing to meet the supposed demands and needs of teachers and students or ambitions circumscribed communities considered to be analogous, one might say, those that express the users of postal services , which usually prefer to contact the office nearest to the places of residence without much care of their decor.

Given the solid parliamentary majority enjoyed by the government of which she belongs, I wonder, dear Minister, if not you should be doing is promoting a new legislative initiative aimed to clarify the degree has only an academic value, thus promoting the only reform that could allow the reorganization of the Italian university. One such initiative would be welcomed by many of those who disagree with the policy of the government and could further open the way for a series of reforms virtuous ", prompting the University to compete by providing training services more efficient and not structured according to logical endogamic. Furthermore, this allows the universities to recognize the full autonomy in the training of teaching staff, facilitating the mobility of teachers and the exchange between academia and the professions.

To this end it would be appropriate to remove the bankruptcy procedures followed so far and those you took for the recruitment of teachers, without paying much attention to the instructions recently issued by the CUN that seem to suggest the appropriateness of adopting a purely quantitative parameters for assessing productivity Therefore, academic and scientific authoritativeness of future teachers. In lieu of these procedures could restore the institution of the Free Teaching, in force in other countries, leaving the responsibility to individual universities to select freely among those teachers holding this status and to offer selected contractual relationships considered most appropriate. To all this should accompany measures to reduce the number of universities and to promote specialization, stronger than you have planned and largely based on assessment, however desirable, that each university makes use of financial resources provision. Finally, it should be radically altered the structure of curricula set on the division of studies in courses of three and two years, the subject of dispute in several European countries and the origin of deleterious phenomena such as progressive increase in students fuoricorso. Three-year courses should be reconfigured simultaneously, preventing subsequent steps these specialized courses are automatic, restoring their four-and five-year general courses which do follow a comprehensive range of specialist courses and master.

I apologize, dear Minister, for the speed and modest originality of these considerations that in recent times books, essays, articles and authoritative positions have developed with more ease. But it is clear, Mr Gelmini, that without addressing the issues and I suggest that the degradation of the Italian university will become unstoppable and with it one of the profession, an architect, whose destinies of this magazine deals for more than eighty years.

Thanking you for your attention, I offer you my best regards,

Francesco Dal Co