During a meeting at Palazzo San Giorgio, the board of directors of the “Dante Alighieri” University for Foreigners of Reggio Calabria took office. Also on the agenda is the election of the president of the board of directors pursuant to article 11 and the revocation of the acts, resolutions and decrees adopted and the positions conferred.
The members designated by the Consortium for the Dante Alighieri University were present: the President, the Mayor Giuseppe Falcomatà, the deputy mayor Paolo Brunetti, the President of the Chamber of Commerce Antonino Tramontana, Dr. Giuseppe Bova, Dr. Pasquale Basilicata, Prof. ssa Ermenegilda Tripodi, Dr. Giuseppe Quattrone and the lawyer Natale Carbone; also connected to the regional councilor Rosario Varì (member without voting rights art.9 c.2 of the university statute).
As clarified preliminarily by Mayor Falcomatà, after last week’s meeting at the headquarters of the Dante Alighieri Society in Rome: «We arrive at this call after a series of discussions in recent months with all the institutional representatives who had the future of the Dante University at heart Alighieri. We have deliberately decided to behave respectfully of the delicate phase that the university is experiencing and of the institutions that are part of it. The installation of the board of directors and the appointment of the president of the board of directors represent a crucial moment to then enter into the merits of the university affair with all the activities that will follow to have a solid future and a training offer that can ensure the safety of the staff administrator who works there, to return to the levels of enrollment and participation that the university had until a few years ago, recomposing the bodies that are not there starting with the rector of the university itself”.
President Tramontana highlighted «The important synergy between the local authorities who have shown that they care about the future of the University for Foreigners to build a path of rebirth. The sharing of the path by the entire Calabrian university system is also important. Today is another step forward that we are taking after the reconstitution of the consortium’s bodies.” Bova underlined the need to operate: «To restart the important history of the University for Foreigners and bring back the many students who from all over the world arrived in the city of the Strait until a few years ago to contribute to the internationalization of the territory».
The Mayor, considering his great and recognized experience in the academic world, proposed to the Council the election of Dr. Basilicata as President, which was welcomed by all by acclamation. «I am very moved by the honor granted to me – declared the newly elected President – I welcome the invitation to start a procedure for normalizing the life of the university starting from the completion of the framework of the deliberative bodies. Attention must be paid in particular to the completion of the board of directors with the figure of the vice president, the appointment of a rector, the reconstitution of an academic council which is the body for directing and governing the academic, cultural and educational processes, it is necessary to return centrality to the academy and its representative bodies and technical-administrative staff. That centrality without which it will not be possible to imagine any path of development or maintenance of the expected levels of work capacity and connection with the university system and the country system. I take on this role with a spirit of service, but with the awareness that it will be a guarantee and fixed-term role that must be considered concluded when a minimum of normality has been recreated”.
Falcomatà thanked Basilicata «For his technical skills and professionalism, for his passion and conviction in wanting to follow this path, as we have seen in the last year, we believe he is the right person in this phase of ferrying Dante to a normalization path”. Paolo Brunetti was subsequently elected as vice president of the board of directors. Councilor Varì said he was «Satisfied with the process of normalizing the activity. I am convinced that the competition system in Calabria is fundamental for the development and growth of the Region and that Dante Alighieri can provide strong and important help in this. I also express satisfaction for this synergy and the hope is that this university can start working in a normal way again.”