Rector
THE NEW YEAR TO "TAKE CARE" AND "BUILD" !
Starting again from frailties to be reborn artisans of humanity!
18th January 2021

Dear all, Happy New Year!

A few more days of lessons, and we are at the winter exam session, which I hope will allow everyone to reap the deserved fruits of the work done in recent months.

And the second semester is not so far away: certainly we cannot yet, with some targeted exceptions, resume presentational teaching in a very significant form; however, we hope that at least later on the student population that gives life to all the UPS environments will once again be numerous in the headquarters. You will be constantly informed.

In the days of the "transition" from 2020 to 2021, I was struck by two verbs used respectively by the President of the Italian Republic, in the Year-end Message, and by Pope Francis in the Message for the 64th World Day of Peace (The culture of care as path of peace , 1 January): take care and build. The events "that marked the path of humanity in the past year - affirms the Pope - teach us the importance of taking care of one another; "We are not at the mercy of events. Now we have to prepare for the future. We do not live in a parenthesis of history. This is the time for builders […], we must act as protagonists", the words of Sergio Mattarella.

It is because as an academic community we want to do ourselves, in the form shared and convergent. For example, through the careful evaluation of university courses and services that accompanies the preparation - now well advanced - of the UPS Self-Evaluation Report, in view of the external evaluation that we will receive from the Holy See"s Agency for Evaluation and Promotion of Quality (AVEPRO). An interesting Inter-institutional Agreement will also be active with the start of the second semester between Universities, Universities and Pontifical Faculties, which also the UPS has signed, aimed at favoring the mobility of students within the Roman ecclesiastical university system at no additional cost. This Coordination and Collaboration Agreement will further highlight the special value of studying in Rome.

"Moved by hope" - this is the theme of the Strenna 2021 of the Rector Major, our Grand Chancellor - we entrust ourselves to St. John Bosco, whom we will remember in a special way on 1 February, a truly successful example - is his holiness - of commitment, with God"s help, in "taking care" and "building", over time and for eternity.

Prof. don Mauro Mantovani SDB – Rector UPS, Roma