Walter Riviera

**This post is the English translation of a post published on the web-page of the University of Verona. See the original article here.

Good morning everyone,

This is my 5^th time attending the inauguration of the Academic Year (and honestly, I really hope is the last one given that I’m about to complete the master). Being exposed to the Student community, I’m hearing a lot of comments about our University. In addition, there are a lot of news coming from the media, and it may be that the bad news spread faster than the others, but regardless to the validity of the various arguments, I think that the time to change and begin a new chapter has come. For three reasons:

1) We have a great opportunity. Today we are at the inauguration of the new academic year and I think there is no better opportunity than this, to look back and understand where we have arrived, and what problems we have yet to face. Knowing where to start is the first step for defining a strategy to allows us to reach the goals we have set for ourselves;

2) However serious the situation may appear, being self-pity never helped anyone; And quite frankly I’m starting to get a little tired of hearing that things are not going well, that students are not considered and that nothing will ever change. I truly believe that we, as students, have much more power than we think: we can (and should) rise our problems to the various committees distributed across all the departments. It would be enough, as great first step, to begin sharing our feedback with the students representatives rather than our facebook walls. However, I’m also conscious that if today we no longer believe in student council, it may as well be due to the heavy presence of political parties that ultimately have more interest in selling logos than contributing to improve the environment for the sake of it. Again, this is another example of behaviour that we can fix and prevent.

3) It’s a step we can afford: we can do it! In fact, I believe that one of the primary problems of this university cannot be attributed to shortages of services or particular inefficiencies. The 5 years of experience as Student Representative that I collected so far, allowed me to take a closer look at the different contexts we all have to deal with every day, and I noticed that we often forget one fundamental aspect: before being Students, Professors or Employees serving the University, we are People.

This consideration may sound trivial, but we must not forget that none of us would be able to perform our duties at best, if we would not feel comfortable in the environment in which we live. Before ensuring a functional environment for the different roles, we should aim at providing a welcoming place for the People; because in contexts where individuals are encouraged to have dialogues, problems don’t last and solutions are found. That’s when regulations and detailed constraints become superfluous because relationships are implicitly managed by the only rule that is always valid, the one that can’t be written nor read, but only interpreted: the common sense. I believe that this goal can be achieved, since each one of us has the power to help someone else, even by simply acknowledging openly the merits of those who have worked, so that it can be an incentive for everyone ( perhaps good news don’t sell much, but focussing only on the downsides does not really help either).

This change is a goal that we should all aim for, because only in this way will we learn how to focus on the essence of the “mistakes” rather than who’s the person to blame. Otherwise, as long as we will limit ourselves to behaving as guests or end-users of services, we will never be able to feel part of the system. Of course, this will take time, but after all “change is a process, not an event”. However, I’m aware that this is just an ambition coming from an opinion and that each of us is free to choose how to live his relationship with the University. Anyone is free to circumvent problems leaving the burden of solving them to others. The important thing to remember when choosing to do so, is that if on one hand we can save ourselves from additional responsibilities, on the other we are implicitly choosing to give up the right to complain about any problems showing up during our path.

In conclusion, I would like to extend my warmest wishes for this new Academic Year to:

– All the Researchers and Lecturers, hoping they will invest more and more time to improve teaching. It is incredibly stimulating when in addition to the concepts you can breathe the passion of the person who explains.

– All the Students to indulge themselves and immerse themselves in what they have chosen to study, because with calm and good will all the exams can be passed.

– All the Representatives, to strive and succeed in reaching the objectives they have been elected for, not stopping to be content for solving problems, but aiming to be a role models for all.

– To the Admins and the broader University staff, hoping that everyone can feel repaid for the patience and all the smiles invested every day to keep this University running