Life in Italy: good news for Insubria

Another evaluation of Universities, this time by Minister Gelmini, and this time it counts: the percentages are increments or decrements of financing. The criterion is "being virtuous". There are significant differences between the order here and that given by Il Sole 24 Ore.

1 Trento 10,69%
2 Politecnico Torino 5,22%
3 Politecnico Milano 4,14%
4 Bergamo 2,82%
5 Genova 2,52%
6 Milano-Bicocca 2,51%
7 Roma 'Foro Italiaco' 2,35%
8 Torino 2,18%
9 Udine 1,95%
10 Tuscia 1,80%
11 Milano 1,69%
12 Venezia 1,65%
13 Chieti 1,50%
14 Padova 1,37%
15 Insubria 1,36%
16 Bologna 1,33%
17 Roma 'Tor Vergata' 1,28%
18 Ferrara 1,12%
19 della Calabria 1,09%
20 Modena-Reggio Emilia 1,05%
21 Politecnica Marche 1,01%
22 Pisa 0,99%
23 Piemonte Orientale 0,79%
24 Sannio di Benevento 0,75%
25 Pavia 0,33%
26 Verona 0,31%
27 Politecnico Bari 0,26%
28 Brescia -0,39%
29 Perugia -0,56%
30 Roma Tre -0,79%
31 Parma -0,91%
32 Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria -1,06%
33 Salerno -1,06%
34 Lecce -1,16%
35 Iuav-Venezia -1,34%
36 Catanzaro -1,42%
37 Napoli -1,52%
38 Catania -1,60%
39 Bari -1,94%
40 Parthenope di Napoli -2,03%
41 Cagliari -2,08%
42 Roma 'La Sapienza' -2,11%
43 Teramo -2,17%
44 Cassino -2,21%
45 Molise -2,29%
46 Camerino -2,42%
47 L'Orientale di Napoli-2,50%
48 Seconda Università di Napoli -2,82%
49 Basilicata -2,90%
50 Sassari -2,95%
51 Messina -3%
52 Palermo -3%
53 Foggia -3%
54 Macerata -3%.

Life in Italy: University reform - too many specialist degrees

Reflecting, it seems to me that the Science Faculty in Como is trying to keep open too many specialist degrees. Remember that the reform requires a 25% reduction of courses. In Como there are at present 5 specialist degrees - Chimica, Chimica Industriale, Fisica, Matematica and Ambientale. The new enrolment in total for these courses in 2008 was less than 20 students (at 30 November). Forty staff will be needed to cover these 2 year courses under the new rules. Even reducing by one specialist degree, 32 staff would be needed, much more than the number of new enrolling students.

The president of the faculty justifies these courses on the basis of excellence of staff at Como. But there are also excellent staff in Milan which is 50 kilometers distance from Como, with two distinct train services.

Life in Italy: reform of the Universities

I have written before about the law 270. Now we are speaking about the duesettantuno, because the 270 is gradually evolving. It seems now that the rules of the law 270 will be in practice even more severe.

Here I want to discuss a point that I have not seen discussed, namely the transition period from the old law to the new.

This year 2009 we have activated at Insubria all the old courses. The 270 comes into force in 2010. For the Science faculty at Como the 270 requires that the courses be cut in 2010 by 25 percent.

But there is a severe contradiction here: courses cannot close in one year. Students who commenced a course have the right to finish it, in the following two years (or one year in the case of the specialistica).

It is difficult to hide from this contradiction because when staff are assigned to courses in the ministerial computer it will be painfully evident.

Another example of Italian furbizia, and escamotage.

Life in Italy: furbizia

Italians prefer to be considered furbi, rather than intelligenti.
"Furbo" roughly translates as "cunning".

One of the secret pleasures of the English is to insult a person without that person realizing he has been insulted.

Australians prefer to thought matey rather than cunning or intelligent.

Life in Italy: Bad news for Insubria

Il Sole 24 Ore has made a ranking of Italian Universities. Insubria is in the middle. Here is the list of public universities, some of which I list below with their scores. The bad news is that Insubria is the penultimate in the score for student results at the maturità.

1. Milano Politecnico 788
3. Trieste 756
8. Piemonte Orientale 668
11. L’Aquila 653
17. Perugia 593
18. Udine 578
20. Bologna 575
23. Calabria 558
24. Milano Bicocca 554
29. Insubria 534
30. Camerino 531
34. Milano 498
39. Bergamo 429
41. Roma La Sapienza 414
43. Catania 407
46. Sassari 351
49. Napoli L’Orientale 337
51. Messina 327
56. Lecce 286
58. Palermo 266
60. Napoli Parthenope 143.

Category Theory 2009, Cape Town

I have just returned from Cape Town and the CT 2009 conference, whose guiding spirit was George Janelidze. The area in and around Cape Town is very beautiful. George and his children Zurab and Tamar were incredibly hospitable.

Maybe because I am Australian I enjoyed most the talks by Steve Lack, on the demimonde, and Ross Street, on Frobenius functors. (Of course I cannot comment on talks for which I was (co)author.) I enjoyed also the talk of Dusko Pavlovic.

Bob Pare continues his work on double categories - he has in mind the algebra of categories, functors and bimodules. Naturally there is a comparison to be made with our work on cartesian bicategories. So far I remain unconvinced by the double category point of view.