“The future passes through your gaze”

Bergamo. Bergamo celebrates new master’s graduates with the Graduation Day. Around 600 former students were present on the morning of Saturday 15 June and participated in the ceremony, inaugurated in 2018 on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the University, in their honour, in the evocative setting of the Aula Magna of Sant’Agostino.

A day also full of illustrious guests, such as the Rector of the University of Bergamo Sergio Cavalierithe new mayor of Bergamo Elena Carnivalsthe Rector of the University of Brescia Francis Castlesthe secretary of the regional councilor Jacob Scandellathe commander of the Guardia di Finanza Academy Gen. Paul Kalendathe provincial commander of the Guardia di Finanza Joseph Theodolithe provincial commander of the Fire Brigade Vincent Jordanthe delegate of the Bishop of the Diocese of Bergamo Don John Gusminithe Luberg councilors Tamara Gerbino And Mario Porzio and the director of the Polytechnic of the Arts of Bergamo Daniela Giordano.

In 2023 there were 1720 master’s graduates, of which 1121 were women and 599 men. These are certainly important numbers, but there is more: just think of the very high employment rates, in fact 81% of Bergamo students find employment one year after obtaining their academic qualification.

After the usual entrance, via procession, by the students and associated professors, the event was officially kicked off to the tune of the Italian anthem and the European Union’s Ode to Joy, played and sung by the jazz band ‘Bizarre Quartet’.

To reiterate the great, fundamental and very close link between the University and the institutions, none other than the newly elected mayor of Bergamo, fresh from arriving at Palazzo Frizzoni, Elena Carnevali, addressed it directly to the audience of graduates: “It is a great pride to be here and be able to maintain a close connection with the university environment. Be protagonists of your life, in the social and professional dimensions which begins today. This is my wish for you new graduates who are looking towards the future with the energy and enthusiasm of your age and with the trust that we adults place in you. During your training course, completed with the achievement of a master’s degree, you have cultivated interests and knowledge, enriching them with quality knowledge and skills; but above all you have developed that critical spirit indispensable to be citizens of the world. You are the present and, even more so, the future: build it with all the passion and determination you are capable of. In recent months I have met many girls and boys who have expressed to me the urgency of being listened to and participating in choices that directly concern them and which impact the lives of all of us. I am committed to involving them with them because I believe that their contribution can be rich and valuable. Our community needs your vision. Bergamo needs you to be increasingly open, enterprising and international.”

“You who are doctors – underlines the Rector from Brescia in his short but significant speech Francesco Castelli -, never forget humility. Be wise but never pedantic; donate something to your society, realizing your personal aspirations in this country too. Every person who drops out of university is a defeat: we can’t afford it and that’s why we’re working so hard. The university is going through complicated times, with winds of war far and near and the community has always wanted these walls to be a place of peace. The stimuli given by the students did not fall on deaf ears, it is right to have different opinions, but with discussion we can reach a mutual agreement”.

Word, then, to the Rector of Bergamo, Sergio Cavalieri, who described the room full of students as “A fantastic sight, which strengthens me for everything I do”. In his opening, he wanted to underline the importance of a continuous relationship with the municipal administration, as done with the Gori government: “I greet and thank the newly elected Mayor of the Municipality of Bergamo, Elena Carnevali, to whom I extend my heartfelt wishes for good job leading the city, and the firm belief in continuing our journey together in creating an increasingly symbiotic relationship between the city and our university. I take this opportunity to thank Giorgio Gori for the fruitful collaborative relationship established during these first two years of my mandate which has allowed, in concert with the other realities of the local and regional institutional, economic and social world, to fully grasp the different opportunities that have gradually arisen for our University”.

A day in which it is right to celebrate, but also to remember those difficult moments spent during the pandemic and all those university students who lost their lives prematurely: “Dear graduates and master’s graduates: it is your day, your celebration, but also the celebration of your loved ones, who are following you via streaming at this moment, and of all of us teachers, who have had the responsibility, the honor and the joy of having you as our students and of being able to grow together with you and thanks to you. You have to live the university experience to the full: we realized and you, in particular, were the first to understand how relationships between people were and continue to be fundamental stages for your personal and professional growth, combined with the choice of a university path. We all noticed this when, within a few days, we found ourselves in front of a screen, unable to relate except through a video camera and a microphone. I address a thought to Silvia Brambilla, who lost her life in a tragic road accident on May 28th and was shortly due to defend her master’s thesis. I address the same remembrance to all our students who left us prematurely: a strong hug from our university community to their families and friends.”

It is almost a necessity for every university to cultivate each student as best as possible, leaving them the choice of which personal qualities to enhance, without forgetting, as Cavalieri specifies, a fundamental aspect: “Listening is the main ingredient of any relationship , personal and professional, but it requires care, tolerance and, for this reason, it can be very tiring and less satisfying than a decision made in one go. Alongside your degree qualification, we have provided you with a toolbox that will allow you to gradually open the doors that you will find in front of you. We need to cultivate and grow a nursery of young researchers: people, scholars, who, with their intellectual curiosity, the freshness of ideas, the natural transgression given by their young age, know how to strengthen the tension of our University towards quality and excellence”.

“My hope – concludes the Rector – is to consolidate a virtuous model of ‘give back’ on a local scale, a model characteristic of Anglo-Saxon societies and based on full awareness of the role that a University plays for the community, people, companies and the economic, health, associative and cultural guidelines; And who better than you. We teachers have done our best to give you the most useful tangible and intangible tools to help you glimpse possible horizons and we are certain that you will know how to use them to the fullest”.

Guest of honour, the professor emeritus, as well as former Rector of the University of Bologna, Ivano Dionigi, who urged young people, in his speech entitled ‘The present is not enough’, with a clear and direct message: “Show your faces, make your voice heard, don’t be illegal immigrants; your time is not tomorrow, it is now; you who have the future in your blood and the privilege of addressing time firsthand. Be aware of your strength, because time is your friend. Be dissatisfied, be demanding, be rigorous. I would like to tell you: be perfect. The world will be better the day we no longer say of a boy or a girl ‘it’s all his father, it’s all his mother’, but of a parent we will say ‘it’s all his son, he’s all his daughter’”.

The show offered by the artist is also suggestive Andrea Arena-Sand Art entitled ‘The magic of sand’, with a story superimposed on the creation of images engraved on a surface covered in sand. This was followed, as scheduled, by the awarding of 80 graduates (10 per department) who particularly distinguished themselves in their studies.

At the end of the morning, the ritual of ‘touch throw’ and the song of ‘Gaudeamus igitur’university anthem, sung and played by the ‘Bizarre Quartet’.