At the beginning of the lessons of the new academic year, Fr Andrea Bozzolo greeted the teachers and students of the University

Dear students and teachers of UPS,

I join you with this short greeting to wish you a good start to the lessons.

Since the start of my Rectorate, this is the first official message that I address to you, at the beginning of the new academic year that we will inaugurate on 14 October. The theme that will accompany us for the next few months is: "With young people for a new beginning. Change of epoch and grace of hope".

"With young people": an expression that comes from the heart of the Salesian charism Don Bosco carried out his work not only as a set of structures and activities for the young people of his time, but as an educational and spiritual experience that he took form and quality with their active involvement. It is a style and an experience that we intend to continue here at the UPS with you and your educators.

"For a new beginning": after the heavy limitations due to the pandemic, today we find ourselves hoping for a "restart" that we hope will be stable and lasting. But the new beginning we need is above all cultural, ethical and spiritual: the exit from the obsessive cult of personal autonomy, which consumes the world and others as pure instruments of its own realization, and the start of a new anthropological season. .

An academic community like ours, committed to training students who will have to assume great responsibilities in the Church and in society, cannot lose sight of the task that God and history assign to our time. "Ignoranti quem portum petat, nullus suus ventus est" ("For those who do not know which port to go to, no wind is favorable", Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, letter 71). But to the sailor who has a clear course, God will not let the good wind be lacking.

Happy academic year to you all!

Prof. Don Andrea Bozzolo
Rector