Alumnus of the Year 2023-2024 award presented to Marina Brambilla, Rector-elect of Università Statale

On Monday 16 September at 6.00 p.m. in the Sala dei 146, IULM and the IULM Alumni Association presented the Alumnus of the Year Award to Prof. Marina Marzia Brambilla, Rector-elect of the Università Statale, who graduated in 1998 with an honours degree in Foreign Languages and Literature at IULM University.

The award of the Association of Graduates of IULM University, which has reached 11 thousand members, went - for the second year - to a graduate of the University who has distinguished himself or herself for merits, initiatives and professional achievements during the current academic year.

Present at the award ceremony were the Rector-in-Office, Professor Gianni Canova, the Rector-elect of the IULM University, Professor Valentina Garavaglia, the Rector-elect of the Università Statale, Professor Marina Brambilla, the Rector-in-Office of the Università Statale, Professor Elio Franzini, and Marco Muggiano, President of IULM Alumni.

‘I established this award because, during my travels, I realised that there is never a place, an institution, where a graduate of this university does not come to greet me,’ began Rector Prof. Gianni Canova. ‘I believe that one of the distortions of our system is that our universities are assessed for the quantity of publications, and not for the quality of the human material we shape. I, on the other hand, think that this should be an indispensable criterion of evaluation. That is why I believe we also have a duty to highlight our ability to train individuals capable of reaching top positions in their field, pointing out that universities are also educational institutions.’

For Prof. Valentina Garavaglia, Rector-elect of IULM University, ‘this is our opportunity to reward an excellence that, through its success, also speaks of our success as a university. We are pleased to think that we professors, with our teaching, are also the reason why so many things happen in people's lives.’

This was followed by the speech of Marco Muggiano, who emphasised the growth of IULM Alumni - which has come to count 11,000 members in three years. ‘It has been a work of communication. At the end of July we were re-elected for another term, confirming the good work done, and now we are facing a second three-year period in which we hope to reach 20 thousand members. I share with Marina Brambilla a beginning here: I found my first job thanks to the Career Service Office. I can attest to the fact that there are many IULM graduates out there, in some fields the IULM degree has the highest job placement index.’

The Rector of the Università Statale, Prof. Elio Franzini, on the other hand, emphasised what IULM University and the Università Statale have in common: ‘Prof. Canova and I have been the humanist Rectors of Lombardy during our tenure. We succeeded in creating a correct educational climate, moving away from the dimension of competitiveness of the universities, to arrive instead at a climate of synergy. Both our universities have the ability to combine the dimension of innovation with that of tradition: we may offer telematic courses, but we will never be telematic universities. That said, this exchange of Rectors is quite unique for me, and I consider it symbolic. It is very important that in university life there are discontinuities, breaks with the past: it is necessary in order to see the world from a different point of view than those who came before us, and this is the engine of innovation.’

‘Coming back here is very exciting for me, because I see the places and re-experience the memories,’ said Prof. Marina Brambilla, Rector-elect of the State University, in her closing remarks. ‘Presence has a meaning, as Prof. Franzini said. I was able to start my studies at IULM in the old premises in Piazza dei Volontari. When we moved here there was still only the central building and a busy street in front of it. I also spent a short time at IULM as a lecturer in German literature. My dissertation in 1998 was on a still little-known author, Siegfried Lenz. I focused on his short stories, which were very popular after the Second World War, and their settings in present-day Poland. I tell this story because what led me to study languages and literature was precisely the opportunity to travel, and IULM gave me on the one hand a passion for the history of literature and research, but also a strong professional background, because in the first years after graduating I worked as an interpreter and translator. All these different experiences created a baggage that I took with me into my experience at Statale. This shows how universities are a system of exchange of competences, of hybridisation of paths, and I would like to think of today as an opportunity to make this exchange grow even more.’