Inauguration of the Academic Year 2024/2025
On Tuesday, December 10, the Opening Ceremony of the 56th Academic Year of IULM University took place in the Auditorium of IULM 6. This was the first ceremony presided over by the newly appointed Rector, Professor Valentina Garavaglia.
The ceremony - opened by the institutional greetings of Anna Scavuzzo, Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Education of the City of Milan, and Marco Alparone, Vice President of the Lombardy Region and Councillor for Budget and Finance - emphasized the value of education and the crucial role of universities in contemporary society.
Anna Scavuzzo highlighted the symbolic significance of the appointment of the new IULM Rector by emphasizing the importance of female leadership in academia. She also praised IULM's commitment to transforming the surrounding district and promoting an ongoing dialogue with the city. Marco Alparone, for his part, addressed a message of encouragement to students, urging them to cultivate their dreams and to consider knowledge as a fundamental resource for meeting the challenges posed by global changes.
Professor Giovanni Puglisi, Chairman of the IULM Board of Directors, recalled how IULM, throughout its history, has been able to anticipate the challenges and needs of the world of work, with a constant focus on the quality of education and innovation. He also highlighted the University's success in ensuring educational quality and security: “We have managed to overcome the difficult years of the pandemic with confidence, guaranteeing rights to all and solidarity to the most fragile.”
The Rector, Professor Valentina Garavaglia, emphasized the importance of renewing, year after year, the University's mission as a place of community, science and internationality. “The university is a great community that lives in the present but is projected into the future [...]. IULM is a free zone where ideas meet and confront each other,” she said, emphasizing the University's growing commitment to internationalization and social inclusion, with projects dedicated to refugee students and increasingly international educational paths. The Rectori also celebrated the University's ability to innovate while staying true to its humanistic roots, citing the Master's degree program in Artificial Intelligence as an example: “Although we are not a STEM university, in the 2021/2022 academic year we inaugurated the 1st Master's degree program in Artificial Intelligence, Business and Society, which is distinguished by an integrated approach that also explores the ethical, social and cultural implications of emerging technologies.”
Matteo Leone, Student Representative, brought the voice of the student community, calling the University a protected space for personal growth. Leone then lucidly addressed the uncertain present of his generation: “We live in a world labeled as precarious, but here at IULM we learn to transform this precariousness into growth and flexibility.” He looked to the future with ambition, hoping for ever greater internationalization of the University and even closer collaborations with European and global institutions: “IULM must become a model of European internationalization.” Finally, he invited freshmen to live the campus as an experience that goes beyond study, capable of deeply transforming those who pass through it.
Also present at the Ceremony was Anna Maria Bernini, Minister of University and Research, who stressed the importance of higher education as an enabler of a stronger and more inclusive society. She called on students and faculty to be active players in a future oriented toward freedom, peace and innovation.
In closing, the IULM Seal was awarded to the Milano Strings Academy, a youth orchestra that embodies artistic excellence and the intergenerational transmission of knowledge. Their performance, conducted by Maestro Michelangelo Cagnetta, provided a moment of intense emotion, sealing the inaugural rite with a message of hope, harmony and beauty.
With a statement from the Rector Prof. Valentina Garavaglia, IULM's 56th academic year has officially begun, bringing with it the University's renewed commitment to an education that combines humanism and technological innovation, community and international openness.
Watch the whole ceremony again: