The contribution of scientific research to combating the pandemic. New teaching methods to ensure continuity during lockdowns. Strategies implemented by the governance to respond to the challenges of an evolving situation that has never before been so critical. The strength of an academic community that turns emergency into opportunity. These are some of the key issues explored in “Esperienze di vita nei giorni del silenzio – La Bicocca al tempo del Coronavirus” (Life experiences in the days of silence – Bicocca at the time of the coronavirus), a book published by Nomos Edizioni, on sale from 17 February (already available on the publisher’s website), one year since the first case of Covid-19 was found in Italy.
The book was edited by Giampaolo Nuvolati, vice-rector for Local Relations at the Milanese university, and, through more than fifty accounts, insights and different perspectives, traces the events at the University of Milano-Bicocca during the Covid-19 emergency. “When, in March 2020, the Covid-19 emergency escalated to a scale that would have been unthinkable just a few months earlier,” recalls Nuvolati in the introduction, “the University of Milano-Bicocca reacted promptly by launching a series of important initiatives.”
Leafing through the pages, embellished with extensive illustrations, you will discover the measures, services and concrete projects undertaken by the academic community not only to tackle and combat the pandemic, but also to relaunch the social and civic – not only education and research – role that the university must play in the context of its third mission: openness to the local area and dialogue with society.
It is a choral reconstruction that documents the period from the first warning signs in February 2020 to the spread of the pandemic, the adoption of the lockdown and phase 2. It reveals the organisational commitment, considerable resources deployed, teamwork at all institutional levels to guarantee the safety of employees and students in the university buildings, the continuity of teaching and research work, and a series of services aimed at the local community and, more generally, at Milan residents.
All the initiatives undertaken are detailed in the volume, which is divided into nine sections. Preceded by Nuvolati’s foreword and an introduction by Rector Iannantuoni, texts by Vice-Rector Marco Orlandi and Alfredo Marra, the Rector’s Delegate for Simplification, outline the evolution of the virus in Europe, the world, Lombardy and Milan. The next section brings together the “voices of governance”, analysing, through the words of the vice-rectors, how Covid-19 has been addressed by the university in the various areas of university life: teaching, the right to study, higher education, job placement, research, internationalization, communication, orientation, health and work organization.
“I am proud of how our community quickly reacted quickly to an unexpected and critical situation," says Rector Giovanna Iannantuoni, "by strengthening its identity. Milano-Bicocca’s answer was innovation, digitalisation and research. This emergency has led to a new way of running universities. If we manage to internalise this lesson, it means that our country will have a better future and our university will be better.”
The book also offers a glimpse of the “experiences” in the field of academic staff and focuses on “reports from Departments and Schools”. There is no shortage of “student testimonials” and “new challenges” for technical and administrative staff. The book also features the collaboration of several public and private actors in the area where the university is located, whose contributions recount how, during this health emergency, they organized support and health safety protection services for their workers and the community.
Photographer Alessandro Giugni makes a significant contribution, documenting, with his black and white shots, a day in Bicocca during the emergency. The book ends with two stories about the pandemic by the junior and senior winners of the “A day at Bicocca” literary competition promoted by the university.