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The rector changes at La Sapienza University, one of the oldest and most prestigious in Europe. It changes after 6 years at the hands of Eugenio Gaudio, doctor and lover of classical culture and music, who, by virtue of the rules that came into force in the last electoral round, has no longer been able to run again. Antonella Polimeni, dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, professor of Odontostomatological Diseases was elected: for the first time a woman becomes rector of the largest university in Europe, founded in 1303, which makes it one of the oldest of the world, with 11 faculties, 120 thousand students every year, of which eight thousand foreigners, and more than 4,700 professors and researchers (net of administrators).
Antonella Polimeni’s path was not easy, she had a well-fed branch, even in medicine, against her choice. What, however, he failed to win. It is also the first time that Sapienza has voted online, for a pandemic, another of the great problems that the new rector will have to face: the consequences of the coronavirus, in which the Umberto I University Hospital is at the forefront.
Universities, only 7 of 84 rectors in Italy are women
by Viola Giannoli
After two medical rectors, Luigi Frati and Eugenio Gaudio, an engineer candidate was expected, the largest Faculty after Medicine and therefore with the greatest chances of winning: and in fact, Teodoro Valente, vice-rector, also appeared at the beginning. research. Innovation and technology transfer, Professor of Materials Science and Technology and Director of the Department of Chemical Engineering, Materials and the Environment, who nevertheless retired (and no one has yet understood why).
Antonella Polimeni is dean of one of the medical schools, and has vast experience in the field, she knows the “Sapienza machine” like the back of her hand, even the smallest gears: as a student she was a representative and then she held the role of member of the evaluation nucleus and director. She is the first dean elected in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry and presented a substantial 34-page electoral program, where she explained how Sapienza, with its 700 years of “living” history, “will grow even more if it is able to perceive the wealth of her pluralism and, if I may say so, her biodiversity, thanks to the strength of her unity in terms of specificities and autonomies. ”Polimeni has not yet said a word about the team that will assist her, but what she intends to do is all in these few lines.
“I present myself to Electricians and Electors with twenty-five years of experience acquired in our Institution and in the University Bodies,” he also wrote to colleagues and colleagues, “encouraged by the enthusiasm and firm determination to give our great University a new qualitative leap At all levels. A structural reform in the medium term, as I would define it, that demonstrates the level of our indisputable excellence ”.
Polimeni also has “the declared intention to heal the gap between science and society, overcoming the current and serious mistrust towards research. Finally, we must add the very urgent impulse of the internationalization of the research and teaching binomial, without forgetting that basic research needs to be supported and accompanied by dedicated areas of the Administration, as well as the relaunch of the Health Area ”.
To continue: “My intention is to prepare a competent, compact and united government team representing the University. The time factor in any reform process is crucial and must meet the expectations of those who vote, especially at a time like the present where hopes and investments in the near future are essential factors to overcome difficulties and accompany the sacrifices that we are all experiencing. doing. “.
Antonella Polimeni comes at a decisive moment to reverse the course of the world, according to the World Economic Forum, the body that measures the gender gap in 144 countries every year: if there were greater equality, if there was a gap between men and women, it would be filled , GDP would increase by almost 6 billion dollars. And one thing is certain: this battle also goes through the Rectorate of La Sapienza.
